ICPC quizzes IMSU staffs over admission racketeering
By Everest Ezihe, Owerri
Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC Imo State Command has arrested some top academic management and administrative senior staffs of Imo State University, IMSU Owerri over admission racketeering.
This reporter learnt from the commission sitting in Owerri last Tuesday that they are acting based on petitions they received from some concerned parents alleging that some of the Faculty Dean’s , Heads of Department and senior staff of the University demanded between N 4 million to N 7 million to offer their wards admission in courses like Nursing, Law and Medicine, while lesser amounts are been demanded for other courses depending on the discipline.
They were equally accused of tampering with JAMB website in order to update their admission scams.
The Commission maintained that over 50 staff of the University are in their net for the past two weeks for allegedly involving in the criminal act and their bank accounts intercepted in the course of their investigations.
The Commission pointed out that most of the lodgement are credited with tags of admission and expressed surprised that most of the accounts within the admission period have lodgement of over one hundred and fifty million.
The commission further informed that they have recommended for the frozen of accounts of the suspects from their various banks and plans have been advanced for them to appear in Court soon so as to face the wraths of the law.
In his reaction, Professor U.U Ghukwumaeze, SAN, The Acting Vice Chancellor of IMSU refused to comment on the text messages sent to him on Tuesday by this reporter trying to find out his management’s stand on the issue.
However, this reporter’s persistent calls on Wednesday, probably forced him to pick and on identification he sarcastically dismissed the reporter that he is inside a plane and may call him whenever he’s back.
Similarly, Nze Ralph Njoku -Obi the University Public Relations Officer, told the reporter that, “I am out of town I will revert back to you in the earliest possible time” this he never did after several hours and before press time.
Meanwhile, some of the University students who spoke to this reporter under condition of anonymity, described the University as an alleged ” hub of corruption, when it comes to admission and examination results” and pleaded for appropriate authorities to beam their searchlight on the University to avoid further degradation.
