Nigeria Content Online

The letter of
recognition granted to Lead City University, Ibadan, may be withdrawn
if by two weeks, the institution’s management fails to close down the
Law Faculty and School of Postgraduate Studies allegedly run illegally,
the National Universities Commission (NUC) has said.

Alhassan Bichi,
director, Academic Standards at the NUC who briefed the press on Monday
in Abuja said that the NUC feels slighted that in spite of several
directives given to the management of the institution to close down the
School of Postgraduate Studies and the Law Faculty, it has gone ahead
to graduate students from the two streams.

“The Management of
NUC was therefore embarrassed to read in Vanguard Newspaper of
Thursday, 23rd December, 2010 that the Lead City University had in
their last convocation ceremony graduated from Faculty of Law and the
Postgraduate Studies, eight (8) PhDs. National Universities Commission
maintains that the Postgraduate School and Faculty of Law of the Lead
City University are illegal and must be closed down immediately,” he
said. “Failure will leave NUC with no option but to begin the process
of closing down Lead City University.”

The Commission has
also declared illegal, certificates acquired by students from the two
programmes saying they will not be recognized for the purpose of
employment or further studies adding that students undergoing courses
in the programmes mentioned above will bear the consequences in future.

Mr Bichi disclosed
that following series of reports and petitions that inundated the
commission from various sources expressing serious concern on the
premature establishment of a Postgraduate School in the university, a
special monitoring team was set up in 2007 by the NUC to find out the
veracity of the information.

He said the report
of the Special Team indicated that within two years of setting up the
institution, it had students in the College of Law at 300 levels and
that the postgraduate programmes were commenced without the approval of
the NUC and the School’s Senate.

“These clearly
contravened two conditions of their license which states that: the
start-up colleges will comprise Management Sciences, Information &
Communication Technology and some Departments in the College of
Humanities. The left-over Departments in the Humanities will be
established in the third phase. The Postgraduate School will also be in
the third phase. The College of Law is deferred.” He also said that
their operational license contains a clause which states that,
“Admission of students on transfer and direct entry in the first two
sessions after take-off is unacceptable.”

He equally stated that during a meeting of the Governing Board of
the Institution and NUC in December 2010, the Commission directed that
the Law programme and School of Postgraduate Studies be closed down
immediately. He said the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board
(JAMB), National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Federal Ministry of
Education were appropriately informed on the directive. He described as
untrue information carried in some quarters by the School management
that the NUC visitation panel gave the University clean bill of health,
saying the NUC letter dated 2nd June, 2008 and signed by the director,
Academic Standards on behalf of the Executive Secretary, NUC clearly
stopped the University from running the Law programme.