In April, 2023, PIJAlance got a tip-off on an alleged fact that one private Polytechnic in Offa, Kwara State, Graceland, is running an illegal admission, leading to affected students not able to have their hands on their certificates and proceed for their academic journey.
Our reporters worked with two insiders who pleaded anonymity based on the confidentiality of the report and we’ve promised to keep our promises.
The two insiders served our reporters with sufficient evidence and victims’ confessions of how they ejected out of the school based on their confirmation that the school courses are not currently accredited.
Our reporters moved further to consult the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) website for confirmation on whether Graceland Polytechnic actually run unaccredited courses or not. On getting to the NBTE website, what they found was shocking.
Our Reporters’ NBTE and OTHER Findings
Graceland Polytechnic was established and registered in 2013, NG-check noted, but got into operation of education in 2019, our reporters found.
This operation may actually be doubted if it is really meant for education per se, or it is a scheme for a corporate fraud.
This is so because the purpose of established tertiary institutions as entrenched in the National Minimum Standards And Establishment Of Institutions ACT, LFN 2004, is greatly breached by the Graceland Polytechnic.
Even, the Polytechnic, for not giving out certificates to students and continuing running unaccredited courses further stand to breach the law of contract between itself and the students.
Checking through the NBTE 2021 directory of private Polytechnics accredited programmes, Graceland’s five previously accredited courses have expired since 2020. But three years later, Graceland Polytechnic continues to run all these courses in its diploma programme. Graceland still added more than five other courses to its programme, whereas, they’re all unaccredited.
PIJAlance struggles to meet with Graceland first and second sessions’ students but was only able to meet students from 2021/2022 session who left the school over unaccredited courses.
One of the students yet revealed in this report is Kemi.
The Protest that led to a Stampede
Kemi was a fresh student of Mass Communication admitted into the 2021/2022 academic session of Graceland Polytechnic to have her Diploma programme.
She had a bright career of becoming one of the country’s finest communicators in the history and she thought, Graceland Polytechnic would help polish her desire.
She had done the first semester examination and already resumed for second semester when the war of the truth broke out.
A few tip-off here and there, led some students to learnt that Mass Communication isn’t accredited yet, Kemi told our insiders. “We just come to know, and even everyone knows about it including our HOD because he cried when students started throwing stones into his office,” she said.
“What now led to the major issue was that our results came out and the majority of us failed. This led many of our mates to take out to the campus streets and headed for the HOD’s office, adding to their yearnings that our course is not accredited.”
PIJAlance has found a video proof of the protest where one man (supposedly, the HOD) was addressing the students to calm down.
Aggrieved students in the video were seen holding placards and leaves. One of them who was, obviously doing the video was heard consistently saying: “today na today o, we no go gree. Accredit our courses, accredit our courses.”
This part corroborated the Kemi’s revelation about the protest over unaccredited courses. According to Kemi, the protest and the result of it led to what sponsored many of them to leave for a greener institution which would meet their needs. “We were up to 1000 but I only know of about nine of us that left for the school (name of the school withheld for safety reasons) I am now.”
Despite all these, PIJAlance, in our accountability quest, contacted the Registrar of Graceland Polytechnic, Mr Ibitoye.
The first contact through a phone call was on April 26, 2023 but Mr Ibitoye didn’t answer our calls. One of our reporters, sent him a text the same day and he didn’t give a reply until we tried to call him two days later.
However, our conversation brings no strings of remorse as Mr Ibitoye insisted “whoever says we’ve not issued out certificates to our students, is telling a big lie.”
He told our reporter he is not going to say anything else on that except what he had said and further attempt to get him speak, he hung up the call, abruptly.
We’ve not tried to call him back, hence.
Read Also: Five years Graceland Polytechnic Runs NBTE Unaccredited Programmes, Graduates Have No Certificates
Agency Report
PIJAlance Magazine, is an independent public-centric journalism arm of PIJA Foundation that stands to tell stories connecting the masses to community justice and development. We always rebel against social injustice. Got a story you'll like us to publish, tip us in contact us.
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