The Unified Nigerian Youth Forum (UNYF), has hailed President Muhammadu Buhari on his recent action taken against the former acting Director-General of the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, Lagos, Mr Chima Igwe.
A statement from Comrade Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem, President, UNYF, said, “It is no longer news that we have many Nigerians with similar cases like that of the Mr Chima Igwe, who have several academic qualifications only on paper, while such never existed either in their behaviours in terms of value-added capacity or in the registry department of the said institution they are claiming to be an alumnus of.”
The forum enjoined the Independent and Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to rise up to the expectations of the current administration and that of President Buhari’s fight against corruption at all levels.
The forum wondered how such a sensitive agency of government with huge budgetary allocation every year would be in existence and its leadership would be receiving salaries and other remunerations for over 17 years and could not detect fake academic qualifications except through a petition.
The statement noted that the Governing Council of the institute raised series of valid fundamental observations against Mr Chima Igwe’s academic qualifications which even led to his being deposed before his subsequent demotion for claiming he had a PhD from a university in Benin Republic.
The forum lamented that in spite of the issues raised against Igwe, the Minister of Science and Technology ignored the board and retained him as the acting Director-General of the institute against the law of the institute and that of Nigeria.
The forum appealed to President Buhari to take serious measures against the Minister of Science Technology and Innovation, Mr Ogbonaya Onu, for bringing such avoidable embarrassment to Nigeria among the comity of nations.
It said that failure to take serious measures against the minister would result in a nationwide protest by its members where their members would picket offices of all agencies and parastatals under his ministry.
It stated that the era when people deliberately ignored constituted authority and bring the nation down under the current administration is over.
