Chancellors of some Nigerian universities, who are at the center of an extortion scandal involving some Nigerian federal lawmakers, lied under oath on Friday in what appears to be a poorly designed cover-up.
A Newslodge investigation had exposed how lawmakers demanded bribes from vice chancellors and other agencies in exchange for compromising the ongoing investigation.
Our investigation revealed that the vice-chancellors paid 2 million naira each to a Providus Bank account number provided by the legislators through an intermediary.
The president of the committee, Yusuf Gagdi, had summoned the vice-rectors on Tuesday to appear today (Friday) in response to the publication of this newspaper.
Some 10 rectors and the interim secretary of the National Commission of Universities, Chris Mayaki, appeared before the Committee in the resumption of today’s hearing.
In his speech, Mr. Gagdi reiterated his false claim that our newspaper investigated and exposed his committee in order to blackmail its members and divert attention from the ongoing investigation of federal agencies accused of recruiting racketeering.
Surprisingly, when he asked Mr. Maiyaki and the vice chancellors to speak, he did not make them take the oath, saying that the oath they took the last time they appeared before his committee was still active.
“The NUC Acting Executive Secretary is here. You all interacted with us and took the oath prior to this moment,” Gagdi said.
In his speech, Mr. Maiyaki did not address the crux of our evidence-backed story, instead asking Jos University Vice Chancellor Ishaya Tanko to speak on behalf of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU).
Tanko claimed the legislators did not demand money from them and falsely accused Newslodge of not contacting the vice chancellors before running the story.
This document contacted CVCNU President Lillian Salami as well as the group’s Deputy President Sagir Abbas who is the Vice Chancellor of Bayero Kano University. Our efforts to get feedback from the two vice chancellors was clearly reflected in our story. The two officials did not return calls or respond to messages sent to them.
Tanko later admitted that the vice chancellors did indeed deposit money into the account number published by Newslodge. However, he lied that the money was intended to buy dollars for a planned summit that some of the university presidents were to attend.
“The vice rectors did not give any bribes to anyone. The rectors dispersed from this committee that day.
“What I remember actually happening is that the next day there was another workshop for vice rectors and because there is another international workshop organized by CVCNU.
“I remember and I remember that many people are looking to get stacodes or some currency that allows them to travel.
“I remember very well that many vice-chancellors were looking for where they would get a more reasonable exchange rate considering that it is difficult to get BTA to travel,” he said, speaking under oath.
Without mentioning the name of the planned summit, Tanko said that it is planned for Birmingham, UK.
“I want to confirm that this trip of the vice chancellors is going to that place, in fact some of them are leaving tomorrow, others are leaving tomorrow and Monday because training starts on Tuesday in Birmingham,” he added.
The commission did not ask the rector of UNIJOS if he and his colleagues had ever transferred money to a single account to buy dollars and what exchange rate Ama Business Solutions offered to the rectors.
UNIJOS Vice Chancellor Ishaya Tanko (PHOTO CREDIT: unijos.edu.ng)
But we can authoritatively report that Mr. Ishaya and his colleagues lied to the commission, as our subsequent reports on this matter will show.
In fact, PREMIUM realized on Thursday the falsehood of the UNIJOS The Vice Chancellor and his colleagues had blatantly packaged to mislead the committee in particular and Nigerians in general.
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We almost published our new findings on this matter on Thursday. But after we became aware of the beleaguered vice foreign ministers’ plans to lie to Nigerians, we changed our plans to allow them to become more deeply involved in the growing bribery and extortion scandal.
We now have a clear shore to reveal how the Gagdi-led committee obtained and acquired AMA Business Solutions to receive the naira extortion proceeds on their behalf, convert it to dollars and deliver it to an agent of a committee member.
We urge Nigerians to be vigilant to this report.