Houdegbe North American varsity tackles NUC over legitimacy

The Houdegbe North American University in Republic of Benin (HNAUB) has accused the National Universities Commission (NUC) in Nigeria of blackmail following the commission’s warning to students against seeking admission into the institution. The university, in an advertorial published in Daily Trust, made reference to recent media publications credited to NUC’s spokesperson Ibrahm Yakasai and […]

The Houdegbe North American University in Republic of Benin (HNAUB) has accused the National Universities Commission (NUC) in Nigeria of blackmail following the commission’s warning to students against seeking admission into the institution.
The university, in an advertorial published in Daily Trust, made reference to recent media publications credited to NUC’s spokesperson Ibrahm Yakasai and Director of Academic Standards, Dr. Gidado Kumo.
“The authors cautioned Nigerian students against seeking admission into HNAUB, Benin, that the university is illegal. That it operates in Badagery, Jos; was recently running bachelor’s degree in public health in Gombe State; that the university flatly refused a joint assessment visit of Council of Legal Education and that it graduated 600 students in an academic year and that the university is a degree mill,” it quoted NUC as saying.
It also denied the claim on offering public health, saying “Public Health is not offered in this university” and that the highest number of law students graduated by the university in an academic year during the last 10 years was 158 as against 600 mentioned by NUC.
The HNAUB argued that the issue of unethical practices as alleged by NUC, was not different from the “age-long conflicting mental and philosophical orientation between Anglophone and Francophone countries”, adding that “different does not connote bad, or inferior or substandard.”
It said it was as mindful of quality assurance “as much as the NUC might claim to be in its mission but we believe that this is better realized through mutual respect and cooperation among supervisory regulators instead of the aggressive, imperialist and grandstanding posture of the NUC which negates Nigeria’s leadership and core country responsibilities.”
It would be recalled that News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in May 2015 reported that the NUC through the Deputy Director of Press, Ibrahim Yakasai has cautioned Nigerian students against seeking admission in HNAUB.
The report quoted Yakasai as saying, “In fact, we listed the university as an illegal university in Nigeria, however, in Benin Republic where it operates, it could be a legal university, but we cannot vouch for its quality.
“There are a lot of unethical practices in HNAUB and we have the information. Sometimes, students pursuing medical programmes will come back to Nigeria for clinical and other things.
“We have no right to say it is not a recognised university since it is recognised by the country it operates in, but we do not approve that university in Nigeria,” he said.
He also noted that efforts made by NUC to visit the school for fact findings were frustrated by the HNAUB’s authorities.
Meanwhile, efforts to speak to the NUC spokesperson, Yakasai on the issue were not successful.