By Our Correspondent
FCE Yola Fails To Redeem Pledge For Refunds On Fake Admission Offer
Contrary to claims by the acting Provost of the Federal College of Education, Yola, Mr. Johnson Malgwa, that it has made refunds to victims of ‘fake’ undergraduate admission offers, investigation have revealed that hundreds of affected persons have not been refunded.
It would be recalled that FCE, Yola was reported to have engaged in sales of thousands of ‘admission’ forms to unsuspecting candidates for 16 unapproved and non-existing degree programmes in the institution, supposedly affiliated to the Universities of Jos and Maiduguri.
Following exclusive report by News Platform, on the admission scandal, the College Management apologized for sells of the ‘fake’ admission forms and offered to make refunds to victims of the scam, saying “the admission was no longer feasible.”
Speaking at the 8th Undergraduate Matriculation Ceremony held on Saturday, 14th of May, 2022, in Yola, the acting Provost, Mr. Malgwa said the institution had approved refund of money paid into the College account with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
However, many victims of the scandal who spoke to The Ear Witness lamented the inconveniences coursed them by the College and said they were not even contacted nor refunded by the College as claimed.
Explaining further on the controversial admission offer, the acting College said the institution sold the forms to unsuspecting candidates because it got ‘approvals’ to mount additional degree programmes from the affiliate Universities as against the usual procedure of obtaining such from the National Universities Commission.
Malgwa insisted that the College observed all the necessary procedure, which according to him include writing letters to mother universities and receiving assessment visitation team before proceeding to sale the forms that later became controversial.
He said, “For avoidance of doubt, the Federal College of Education, Yola had the best intention to bring new degree programmes, went through the whole process of writing letters to the Universities of Maiduguri and Jos seeking for expansion of the proposed courses.
“These Universities set up Committees and conducted Resources Verification Inspection Visit before approvals were sent to us. “
However, he blamed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for ‘delay’ in releasing its admission schedule for 2022 UTME/DE exercise for the reason why over 1490 candidates were made to buy forms for courses they could not be admitted into.
Contrary to claims of haven gone through “the whole process” and obtained approvals to mount additional degree courses, findings by The Ear Witness shows that the Federal College of Education, Yola is NOT listed amongst Colleges affiliated to the University of Jos as at the date of publishing the report.
Investigations revealed further that the Colleges listed to be affiliated to the University of Jos are: Federal College of Education, Pankshin, National Film Institute, Jos and St. Albert Institute for Higher Education, Kaduna.
It was also revealed that the 16 new courses advertised by the College are not listed amongst the NUC approved courses for the Federal College of Education being affiliate of the University of Maiduguri and not University Jos.
In his address at the occasion, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Maiduguri, Professor Aliyu Shugaba represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic Services) commiserated with the victims of the admission scandal and others who were not lucky to secure admission for some other reasons.
He announced that a total of 383 candidates were admitted into 100 and 200 level into the already NUC approved Nine (9) programmes and affiliated to the University of Maiduguri.