Truth be told…
Yah, you know we are in the
season of certificate allegations and counter allegations…lol! Most times, I wonder when our
people will wake up from their slumber and appreciate reality. Is it not high
time we started discussing issues of development and underdevelopment as we
count down to 2015 general election? Issues like what is happening to poverty? What has
been happening to unemployment? What about insecurity, corruption and inequality?
Who is talking about Nigeria’s foreign relations? Must we continue to overheat
the polity with these primordial and 'senseless' issues???
I think the ardent supporters of
the two major contenders in the 2015 presidential election should do well to
convince us on the plans their ‘candidates’ have to solve the myriad
of problems bedeviling the country instead of engaging one another in an unnecessary
vituperations, diatribes and irrelevant character assassination.
Anyways, according to an update
by PUNCH, the authorities of the University of Port Harcourt has debunked
speculations reportedly spread by some ‘never do wells’ in politics that
President Jonathan never completed his doctorate at Uniport and that his
certificate is forged…this is laughable! Lol!
PUNCH reports
FOLLOWING speculations in some
quarters that President Goodluck Jonathan did not complete his doctorate degree
programme at the University of Port Harcourt, the institution has come out in
his defence.
But the Uniport Deputy Registrar
(Information), Dr. William Wodi, explained that apart from acquiring his first
degree in the institution, Jonathan also got his Masters and Ph.D in the same
institution.
Wodi, in a statement sent to
SUNDAY PUNCH via electronic mail, described the rumour about the President’s
educational qualification as baseless.
The deputy registrar of the
university specifically stated that Jonathan was among 422 students that
matriculated in the school in 1977 and was admitted in the Department of
Zoology, which had been renamed Animal and Environmental Science.
“The authorities of the
University of Port Harcourt are aware of rumours that are now spreading like
harmattan fire over the doctoral degree status of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The allegations have neither legs nor grounds to stand on and we hope that its
purveyors will now rest in silence.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the
authorities of the University wish to state without equivocation that Mr.
Goodluck Jonathan, as he then was, was among 422 students, who matriculated in
1977. He was admitted into the then Department of Zoology, now Animal and
Environmental Biology in the then School of Biological Sciences, now a Faculty in
the new College of Natural and Applied Sciences.
“At the end of a successful
residency period, Jonathan was awarded the Bachelor of Science (Upper Division)
in 1981. It was rumoured among students that the young university was reluctant
to award the First Class to its pioneer class in an effort to consolidate its
academic profile,” Wodi said.
He said the President later
enrolled into the postgraduate programme and obtained the Master of Science
degree in Hydrobiology and Fisheries in 1985 and crowned his academic pursuit
in the University with the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Zoology in 1995.
He said, “From the above account,
it has become obvious that Dr. Jonathan successfully completed the prescribed
courses and programmes as specified by the Senate of the University of Port
Harcourt to earn his degrees from the university.”
Stressing that the university
remains proud of Jonathan, Wodi advised any person or organisations in need of
further information on the educational qualification of the President or any
other student of the institution to contact authorities of the university.
“We have absolutely nothing to
hide as an institution that has a statutory mandate to advance the frontiers of
knowledge,” Wodi added.
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