‘Ekiti Varsity Won’t Tolerate Academic Fraud, Sexual Molestation’

Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti

The Vice Chancellor, Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, Prof. Eddy Olanipekun, has threatened that the management would deal decisively with any professor and other academic staff found culpable of plagiarism and sexual harassment offences.

Olanipekun also revealed that a total of 278 graduates of EKSU, would be conferred with first class honours as the institution graduates 16,433 at its combined 25th and 26th convocation ceremonies.

Olanipekun gave the hint yesterday at a press conference heralding the university’s 40th anniversary and 25th and 26th convocation ceremonies slated for March 26, 2022.

Speaking on the zero tolerance he has for fraud and sexual molestations, the Professor of Industrial Chemistry, said: “That you are a Professor doesn’t mean if you commit plagiarism or rape or other crimes, we will gloss over it, no.

“The era of impunity can’t return again here, we won’t allow it. Nobody is above the law. Even some of the students who committed infraction, were  either suspended or dismissed accordingly.”

On the lingering nationwide strike embarked on by the  Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU), Olanipekun appealed to government and other unions in the universities to embrace dialogue, saying the country can’t afford to shut down after the COVID-19 lockdown.

Olanipekun revealed that  an aggregate of 263, 7,023, 8,561, 174, 252, and 160 graduates would be bestowed with diplomas, bachelor , postgraduate diploma , Master and doctor of Philosophy degrees respectively, by the institution.

Reeling out the impressive strides recorded by the university, Olanipekun said 67 out of the 81 academic programmes being undertaken by the institution, had been accorded full accreditation by the National Universities Commission(NUC).

“Apart from the foregoing, all our professional programmes have full accreditation namely from the Council of for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria(COREN), Institute of chartered Accountants(ICAN) and Council of Legal Education of Nigeria, among others”, Olanipekun said.

Despite initial snags caused by lack of funding and non-accreditation, thereby stagnating the running of the programme for years, Olanipekun revealed that  166 medical students had been inducted in the College of Medicine by Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria(MDCAN).

The VC added that the university is improving on the development of ICT Infrastructure, with WiFi transmission covering over 20 kilometres radius, applauding the government for enlisting EKSU as one of the institutions that would be covered under the Independent Power Plant project.

“At the moment, our university has a total of 580mbps. Of this, the university acquired directly 410mbps, Ekiti state government allocated to the institution 150mbps under Ekiti Research and Education Network (EKIREN) and the balance of 20mbps was provided by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)”.

Confirming that the internally generated revenue of the university had been prudently appropriated, Olanipekun stated that proceeds was expended on construction of skills acquisition and entrepreneurship study centre, extension of EKSU water factory and asphalting of a linkage road from College of Medicine to sandwich village at Irasa.

Olanipekun stated that his team had also worked hard to move the university  from 157 to 14 on webometric ranking among  the ivory towers operating in the  country.