The Vice Chancellor of Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba, Professor Marietu Ohunene Tenuche has debunked online reports of being dragged to court over alleged diversion of N31 million meant for the institution’s alumni.
The Vice Chancellor described the publication particularly on https://observerstimes.com, https://www.capitalpost.ng and several other news blogs, with headlines like “Kogi State University female VC dragged to court over alleged diversion of N31 million”, “KSU fraud: Thirty-One Million Naira Prince Abubakar Audu University Fraud, VC and Others Dragged to Court” as unfortunate.
Professor Tenuche while addressing journalists on the development at the university campus, on Thursday, said that the action was deliberately set up to mislead the public and cause grave disaffection to her person.
According to the VC, contrary to the purpose of alumni associations, world over, the Kogi State University management has been, for many years, dealing with a few individuals, who, rather than seek to pursue the ideals of an alumni association, resorted to devising ways of milking the university dry, at all costs.
“To set the records straight, the general public should be informed that Suit No.: AYHC/03/2023 pending before the Kogi State High Court of Justice, sitting in Anyigba, has no link whatsoever, with an allegation of fraud against the office and person of the Vice Chancellor of the university.
“It is no longer news that the alumni association of Kogi State University has been enmeshed in leadership crisis for years now, with two factions, all laying claim to legitimacy as national executives of the association.
“The crises have crystalized into legal action and counter legal actions in court. While the various actions are still pending, one of the factions, championed by two individuals, in particular, approached the university on several occasions, demanding funds and that they be invited to attend meetings of the Governing Council of the university, on the basis that they are the legally elected national executives of the university alumni association, since an Upper Area Court, sitting in Lokoja had granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the other faction from parading themselves as the legally elected executives of the alumni association, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.
“Clearly seeing that the contents of the Interlocutory Injunction is entirely different from the claim of that faction, the university would rather not invite any of the factions until the matter pending in court over legitimacy of each faction’s claim to the national leadership of the association is resolved. Angered by the decision of the university not to give recognition to their faction, the arrow-heads of that faction filed an action against the university and made the Vice Chancellor a co-defendant.
” Their claim in the case is that the university be mandated to invite their acclaimed National President to council meetings and that previous council meetings held to their exclusion and the decisions taken at such meetings, be nullified. They are also asking the court to mandate the university to give account of what they term alumni finances of the association.
“Other demands of the duo before now are that: Demand for funds, they claimed, belong to the alumni association, a reason why they dragged the immediate past university management to court.
That the University should pay their lawyer the bills the association incurred by taking the previous university administration to court. On this, they have caused accounts of the university to be garnisheed to the tune of N25,000,000.00 (Twenty-Five million naira), by an order of the Kogi State High Court, sitting in Idah.
An order mandating the university to return their original certificate of incorporation, which they claim is in the custody of the University.
To these demands, the University has taken the following steps: On the first demand, the University released the sum of N17,000,000.00 (Seventeen million Naira) to the alumni association. Thereafter, management closed the University Development Account formerly (Alumni Account) and stopped collection of University Development Levies from graduating students of the university as was previously done before the emergence of the present University Administration. To this end, the present university management has never collected any Development Levy or Alumni fees from graduating students.
On the second demand, the University vehemently objected to the demand to pay their lawyer and has filed an appeal against the subsequent garnishee order of the Kogi State High Court, Idah, at the Court of Appeal, Abuja.
On their demand for inclusion as members of the University Governing Council, the university has since filed our defence to the case and response to the motion for restraining order. The University Governing Council has directed that the University Management should commence the process for the review of several anomalies observed in the 2018 University Law, in line with the report of the last Visitation Panel and other global universities best practices.
“A simple check at the High Court, Anyigba Registry or a call to the University Management or its lawyers, would have revealed these facts.
” The publishers of the unfortunate news, went to town with the stories they probably were told by the individuals who are bent on bringing their alma mata and her leadership to disrepute, to satisfy their personal aggrandizement, under the guise of “pursing the interest of the alumni association”, without an attempt at verifying the news.
What is more? It is the derogatory manner the Vice Chancellor was referred to in those publication as “KSU female VC” directly, taking a swipe at the gender of the person of the Vice Chancellor of the university with several conjectures?”
