A group of 13 non-governmental organisations, NGOs, has petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari over activities of some sponsored Nigerians, who are bent on discrediting the vice chancellor of National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, Professor Vincent Tenebe, and his management team.
Speaking under the aegis of Civil Society Organisation for Social Justice, Fairness and Transparency, CESJET, in Abuja, yesterday, its executive secretary, Torkuma Asongo, said efforts were ongoing to arrest those behind the incident.
Torkuma Asongo said more worrisome to the group was the emergence of a group under the auspices of NOUN Congress of Staff and Students, which is making moves to extort, blackmail and intimidate the vice chancellor and his management team into succumbing to funding union activities where these elements would be able to steal under the guise of unionism.
Asongo said: “We have discovered that many universities’ vice chancellors, who are afraid of having their reputation tarnished, have fallen prey to these unscrupulous elements.
“Since some professors are afraid of fighting back, it is imperative that we exhibit some amount of social justice, decorum and morality in our engagements with public servants so as not to bring the structure of corporate governance into disrepute.
“There is also the need for the president to come to their rescue before over-zealous citizens take advantage of the war against corruption to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians under the cover of anti-corruption crusade within his regime.”
Asongo said the coalition, after a careful verification, discovered that the several petitions against Professor Tenebe and the management team of NOUN have ulterior motives.
“We suspect that the petitions are part of efforts to overwhelm the anti-corruption efforts with frivolities that will increase the workload of the statutory agencies and derail its focus.
“We appeal to President Buhari not only to disregard the distractions of such frivolous petitioners, but also cause relevant agencies to expose those abusing the nation’s scarce resources.”
Speaking under the aegis of Civil Society Organisation for Social Justice, Fairness and Transparency, CESJET, in Abuja, yesterday, its executive secretary, Torkuma Asongo, said efforts were ongoing to arrest those behind the incident.
Torkuma Asongo said more worrisome to the group was the emergence of a group under the auspices of NOUN Congress of Staff and Students, which is making moves to extort, blackmail and intimidate the vice chancellor and his management team into succumbing to funding union activities where these elements would be able to steal under the guise of unionism.
Asongo said: “We have discovered that many universities’ vice chancellors, who are afraid of having their reputation tarnished, have fallen prey to these unscrupulous elements.
“Since some professors are afraid of fighting back, it is imperative that we exhibit some amount of social justice, decorum and morality in our engagements with public servants so as not to bring the structure of corporate governance into disrepute.
“There is also the need for the president to come to their rescue before over-zealous citizens take advantage of the war against corruption to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians under the cover of anti-corruption crusade within his regime.”
Asongo said the coalition, after a careful verification, discovered that the several petitions against Professor Tenebe and the management team of NOUN have ulterior motives.
“We suspect that the petitions are part of efforts to overwhelm the anti-corruption efforts with frivolities that will increase the workload of the statutory agencies and derail its focus.
“We appeal to President Buhari not only to disregard the distractions of such frivolous petitioners, but also cause relevant agencies to expose those abusing the nation’s scarce resources.”
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