The Faculty of Law at the University of Jos (UNIJOS) has rejected allegations by former Youth and Sports Minister Solomon Dalung, accusing him of speaking as a partisan politician rather than from facts.
Dalung had claimed that the current Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Amupitan, commercialised the results of 16 “special students” during the 2009/2010 academic session, when Amupitan served as Dean of the Faculty.
In a statement issued to journalists in Abuja, the Dean of UNIJOS Law Faculty, Professor Francis M. Kwede, said no such manipulation ever took place in that class or any other, to the best knowledge of the Faculty Board.
“Nothing of the sort ever happened,” the statement read. “There was no trading off of results of final year students who earned Second Class Upper degrees in favour of any alleged group of ‘special students’.”
The Faculty noted that upon assuming office in 2008, Professor Amupitan introduced Excel spreadsheets for result compilation – replacing a manual system prone to delays and arithmetic errors. The move was widely commended and helped final year students meet Nigerian Law School deadlines.
The statement further dismissed Dalung’s suggestion that Amupitan lacked integrity, pointing out that he was repeatedly elected by the University Senate to the Governing Council and later as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration).
On Dalung’s claim of victimisation, the Faculty stated that he completed his LL.M in December 2010, adding: “It is not fathomable how he sacrificed his postgraduate studies because of activism and victimisation. He never contested any student’s degree classification before the Faculty Board.”
Concluding, the Faculty urged the public to ignore the allegations, describing them as “comments made in the heat of partisan and political rhetoric” with no factual or documentary evidence.
