The House of Representatives has directed the Committee on
Tertiary Education and Services to investigate the alleged
intimidation and extortion of money from universities for
accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
This followed a unanimous adoption of a motion moved by Rep. Sam
Onwuaso (PDP, Anambra, (Ogbaru Federal Constituency) during the
plenary presided over by the Deputy Speaker, Mr Idris Wase on
Wednesday.
The motion is entitled “Need to Investigate the Allegations of
Corruption in the National Universities Commission (NUC) during its
Accreditation of Universities’’.
Moving the motion, Onwuaso said that the NUC accreditation
system had been used over the years to maintain and monitor quality
and high academic standards in Nigerian universities.
He said that the process to evaluate academic programmes by the
commission was done every five years.
The house also noted that in the course of carrying out its
mandate, the NUC accreditation teams undertook the spot assessment
of facilities, lecture halls, quality of academic content and
laboratories, among others.
This is to ensure that the universities meet up with the
required standards to run such academic programmes to determine
whether to revoke, withhold or grant accreditation.
The lawmakers expressed concern on allegations of intimidation
and extortion of money from universities in order to ensure
accreditation of their programmes.
Furthermore, the reps expressed concern that the alleged
monetary demands for accreditation led to the increment of tuition
fees by some universities to meet up with the demands of the NUC
accreditation teams.
The house directed the committee to investigate the allegations
and report back within six weeks for further legislative.
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