Monumental Fraud Rocks UNICAL As Vice Chancellor Milks Institution Dry

Eneh John

If documents made available to Secrets Reporters from our sources is anything to go by, then the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Professor James Epoke, who had served as the returning officer in the fraudulent governorship elections in Akwa Ibom State may well be on his way to maximum prison for milking the university dry on daily basis through the diversion of staff salaries in the institution.

Sources who spoke with our medium had urged us to carry out an independent investigation on the VC and the institution.

Our Investigations indicates that, over seven hundred (700) staff of the institution that were employed in August 2010 by the former Vice Chancellor, Professor Bassey Asuquo, had their employments terminated by the incumbent Vice Chancellor, Professor James Epoke.

Though reasons for such action by the Registrar, Dr.Julia Omang was not given in a memo she signed which was obtained by Secrets Reporters, reports have it that, the vice chancellor who is a diehard tribalist, favours only indigenes of Cross River State who are from his Local Government Area, and had taken this action on grounds of ethnicity in a federal institution that ought to accommodate all and sundry.

It has been alleged that, University of Calabar, under the leadership of Professor Epoke, has ranked as one of the top corrupt institutions in Nigeria.

It is on well documented evidences that employees of the institution who the vice chancellor terminated their employments, are currently having their salaries running without collecting such monies.

While most of them are still at home without jobs, Professor Epoke diverts salaries meant for these employees into his private pockets.

Salaries from the federal government are still been paid into University of Calabar account without the monies been stopped by the institution since the staffers are no longer under employment with the university.

The accumulation of salaries of the 700 sacked staff of the institution that started receiving alerts since January 2011 and June, 2015 runs into billions of naira.

The pension Fund Administrator (PFA) had confirmed to Secrets Reporters that salaries of the sacked staff were still ongoing, while remittance is sent to PENCOM.

According to an official in PFA, the remittance is a percentage of one’s monthly income. So, those whose salaries were still running were entitled to this.

The questions on the lips of the sacked workers is when are they ever going to be paid for the months they worked for, before being sacked, as monthly alerts pours into their phones.

Some are worried that University of Calabar through the Bursar and the Vice Chancellor, continue to commit fraud through the use of the sacked workers data and go unchecked in a government that is currently fighting corruption.

There are strong indications that the five year tenure of the Vice Chancellor which will come to a close in November 2015, will be investigated by the anti graft agencies, as we continue in our investigations on the Vice Chancellor to uncover the fraud in his administration of the university.

Efforts to speak with the University Public Relations Officer on this issue were unsuccessful as his phone contact was unreachable.