A damning report has revealed how the Federal University of Technology, Owerri , Imo State, followed an illegal and fraudulent process in the appointment of terror-linked Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, as a professor of cyber security.
The report, conducted by a six-man committee of the Academic Staff Union of Universities , and obtained by SaharaReporters on Monday, exposed how three deputy vice-chancellors intimidated ASUU FUTO congress by their presence at a meeting where Pantami’s issue was discussed, ensuring a professorial fraud. SaharaReporters observed that the committee in its report made recommendations that Pantami’s professorship was a fraud and should be discountenanced.
The report said, “After exhaustive interactions with relevant stakeholders, the committee wishes to observe as follows; one the immediate past chairperson, Dr Chris Echereobia, failed to guide the branch excos and congress adequately. Information and directive from the zone were not properly relayed to the exco members.
“The issue of due process as regards the promotion of Dr Isa Pantami to the rank of a professor should not have risen in the first place because he was not qualified to apply for the position of the professor of cyber security in FUTO. His PhD could just earn him Lecturer 1. At no point was he a senior lecturer, not to talk of a reader .