LASU: It was sex-for-marks then, now it’s certificate racketeering

** By Michaël Jimoh**

Sometime back, university authorities had to contend with randy lecturers trading marks for sex with female students. As technology advances with concealable handy gadgets everywhere, teachers are now wary of giving even a suggestive wink. Even so, some have devised ways of making the best of their positions, especially financially.

For years since inception in 1983, Lagos State University Ojo has lived under the shadow of two dominant institutions of higher learning in one of the oldest colonies in Nigeria. Founded in 1962, the federal University of Lagos Akoka is older by almost two decades. Another federal institution Yaba College of Technology boasts of a longer provenance – 1947.

As a state-owned school founded fairly recently, it is only reasonable to assume that LASU would have made a heavy going of competing with the already existing schools for staff and students. Still, the school with its permanent campus along Lagos/ Badagry Expressway has acquitted itself well as an academic institution, emerging once as the second highest of six Nigerian universities by Times Higher Education World Ranking for 2021.

LASU has also had its moments of infamy, times when the school’s reputation was sullied by people who should burnish it. In mid-2005, a lecturer in the Department of English Mr. Stanley Adebodun Oriola set off the first of a series of sex scandals that would rock the school to its very foundation. Hoping to benefit from his position Oriola arranged a tryst with his female student in a hotel room in Ketu. The understanding was clear: a romp with the said student and the lecturer will up her grades in two courses ENG 122 and ENG 125. The plan backfired leading to the teacher’s sack by the school authorities.

If Oriola’s dismissal was to serve as a deterrent to others, three of his colleagues apparently didn’t care. Following a recommendation by the Senior Staff Disciplinary Committee on Oriola’s case, the VC Professor Abisogun Leigh said “it was a clear case of sexual harassment but the senate committee felt otherwise. Even some of his colleagues are saying it was not sexual harassment and that it was a set up.”

To forestall future occurrence, Leigh pointedly noted that he “rid the system of the rot that had been giving the institution a bad image outside.”

For some time, it appeared to be so thus forever banishing the spirit of the philandering lecturer from stalking the academic corridors of the university. But it didn’t take long before it resurfaced once again. This time, the number of lecturers accused had increased to three, all of them charged with the same sex-for-marks as Oriola was years before.

In separate investigations, two Associate Professors Ayoola Sunkanmi Odubunmi of the Department of Economics and Isiaka Ajani Ogunwande of the Department of Chemistry were caught pants down in an attempt to bed their female students in exchange for marks. A third, Emmanuel Orilade Gbeleyi Lecturer II of the Department of Anatomy, Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM)) was also unmasked.

Speaking of the incidents in 2018, Mr. Ademola Adekoya spokesperson for LASU at the time said the lecturers were dismissed “following due investigations into the allegation of sexual misconduct levelled against them as well as testimonies of their respective accusers.”

Though LASU quickly earned notoriety as a school for sex scandals of that sort, another institution – also state-owned – soon joined in ignominy. Ambrose Alli University Ekpoma hardly counts as a place where teachers had the soft spots for their female wards considering the school’s macho image on account of the frequency of cult-related disturbances. But a video soon leaked of a senior male lecturer undergoing a humiliating exercise in the hands of a female student who accused him of requesting for sexual favours for marks.

Mostly in the buff in the video, Dr. Peter Otubu of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Faculty of Engineering would never have envisaged playing a leading role in the bizarre drama he was involved in that day. At the end of it, he had become a statistic in the number of university lecturers involved in sex-for-marks scandal.

And to that Professor Cyril Osim Ndifon Dean of the Department of Law University of Calabar would also add his name to the growing list of university dons preying on their students. The professor has since been suspended from the university while investigation is ongoing.

From that time till now, it has been quiet on the academic front until the recent scandal blew up once again. Again, the explosion was heard right from the otherwise sedate campus of LASU and not about a Lothario lecturer trying and failing to bed his student. It was worse.

Like the sex-for-marks scandal the school was involved in back then, this one was a made-for-tabloid story.

When SaharaReporters first published an expose of certificate racketeering by academic and non-academic staff of Lagos State University Ojo on 6 November 2023, it got the desired effect from audiences far and wide.

The headline said it all: “Degree For Sale: Sting Operation Exposes Lagos State University Certificate Racketeering, Shielding Of Workers Charging Up To N3Million Per Buyer,” with a rider “Degree available for N2 million – N3 million.” It was damning enough.

The online publication began by saying that “when Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, was established in 1983, it was envisioned to pursue the advancement of learning and academic excellence. None of those involved in the establishment of the noble project could have foreseen that less than four decades down the line, all it would take for intellectually lazy people to get a degree approved by the school Senate would be N2 million to N3 million.”

According to findings by SaharaReporters, “all the interested person needs are the required amount of money – which can vary depending on the department of choice – and an O-level certificate and in two to three weeks, they can count themselves as ‘LASU graduates’. Remarkably, their details and results make it to the school server alongside those of genuine graduates who burnt the candle at both ends to earn theirs. And that is not all: the founders must be turning in their graves knowing that not only is certificate racketeering thriving in the school but that some staff members were caught and mysteriously allowed to stay on as if nothing happened.”

What did happen was that once apprised of the racket by an alumnus of LASU, some DSS members, security detail from the school armed with secret cameras and recoding devises set up a sting operation. That was in 2020, 202I. By the time they were through they discovered that “the certificate racketeering syndicate have genuine Lagos State University certificates that anyone interested can purchase for between N2 million and N3 million, depending on the technicality of the course involved.

“Once they have their client, the only things they will ask from the client are money and their O-level certificate. They check the number of credits you have. That will determine the course they will recommend. As professionals, they know the course you should do or the degree you should go for once you have this or that. Once that is settled, they have members of the syndicate in the ICT department of the school who will input the person’s date into the server. They collect the money and input all your scores and, after, it will be posted on the server of the university. Once you go to the school’s server with the matric number generated for you, you get the name and details of the student there as an authentic student.”

The online newspaper then went on to publish names of those involved in certificate racketeering at LASU. Out of the loop on the certificate racketeering under his very nose, the VC then Professor Olarenwaju Fagbohun was said to be “very saddened.” To confirm that there was indeed something amiss in issuance of certificates, the undercover agents mooted another plan to lure one of the racketeers Qudus a non-teaching staff who demanded for N3m.

“After we met with him,” the undercover agent told SaharaReporters, Qudus “gave a bill of N3 million and the then-VC (Prof. Fagbohun) who was saddened by the development and eager for us to bust the syndicate provided N1 million as an advance payment to give to the group to lure them in.

“There were body cameras and so on. We worked together as a team then and the school’s security team was also part of the operation. True to their word, they did it and everything was posted on the school’s server. It was ready for clearance by the Senate of the school; that was when we arrested those people. They spent some time in custody and made damning statements that indicted top-ranking members of the university.”

SaharaReporters estimate that 104 degree certificates have been issued so far by the LASU syndicate, singling out the ICT department of the school as “very corrupt and there are still elements there today who were part of the certificate racketeering.”

The Dean of Student Affairs Professor Abayomi Olumoko has been suspended and now replaced by Dr. Abiodun Fatai-Abatan a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, according to a statement by Mrs. Oluwayemisi Thomas Onashile, Coordinator of the Centre for Information and Public Relations.

“Lagos State University Management does not take such matters lightly. Its inquiries into the allegations will be concluded before the end of 2023. Consistently with applicable law, the outcome of the inquiry will be published and appropriate action will be taken,” insisting that “there has been no cover-up and there will be no cover-up.”

Even the Lagos State House of Assembly has ordered its own investigation to unravel those behind the certificate scam in an institution some of them graduated from.

And just when you thought the last had been heard of certificate racketeering in institutions of higher learning, reports came from AAU Ekpoma of yet another involving not a syndicate this time but a lecturer in the school.

As of now, Dr. Omoregie Nosa Acting Head of Department of Accounting has been issued a query concerning his role in alleged “large-scale certificate and transcript racketeering at the institution.” The same query also accused Nosa of “establishing a cyber café which is dedicated to the illegal issuance of fake certificates and transcripts of the university.”

Following an undercover work by a team of DSS, the Registrar of AAU Mr. Ambrose Odiase queried Nosa charging that the cybercafé owned by the lecturer “has been observed to be engaged in the production of fake certificates and transcripts,” and issuing same to one Osolase Deborah Ebarekenta, a graduate of the Department of Chemical Pathology, Faculty of Medical Laboratory Science.

In a joint statement by Dr. Monday Igbafen, former chairperson of AAU chapter of ASUU and Dr. A.A Aizebioje-Coker, secretary, Dr. Nosa was also accused of using his office to collect N30,000 per post-graduate student for presentation/defense of proposals/seminars against the approved regulation of Senate.

“Dr. Omoregie,” Igbafen and Aizebioje said, is “using his office as acting Head of Department, has been collecting from the Part-time students between N5,000 to N10,000 under the guise of checking for missing results. The phenomenon of missing results has since been outlawed by the Senate of the university.”

Responding to the charge of certificate racketeering, Nosa denied all, insisting that he does not have a cyber café. “I do not have a cyber café,” Nosa said. “People want to tarnish my image just because they believe that I am working with the government. It is totally untrue. I don’t own a cyber cafe neither do I print certificate and transcripts for students.”

In the meantime, a forensic firm Wealth Root has faulted SaharaReporters allegations of certificate racketeering at LASU. Hired by the school’s management possibly to launder its already besmirched reputation, Mr. Benedict Okohnma General Manager of the company admitted there was indeed a certificate racketeering syndicate but carried out by some staffers of the institution’s satellite campuses.

“We wish to bring to the notice of the general public some misconceptions which are already in the social and traditional media about the alleged certificate racketeering in the Lagos State University,” a statement from Wealth Root asserted.

“During our investigation, we discovered that this act was being perpetrated through the University External System otherwise known as Satellite campuses and not the full-time regular academic programmes as it was being projected in the media.

“Further findings by us also revealed that some members of these syndicates had once worked at the university’s External System at one point or the other, and so took advantage of the university’s resolve to wind up the External System by clearing the backlog of yet to be graduated students of the External System platform, otherwise known as part-time students at the time.”

Like the university spokesperson, Thomas-Onashile, Wealth Root also confirmed investigation is ongoing and there will be no cover up. “The university also charged us not to compromise standards but to do a thorough job by taking our time to explore every patchy area.”