The University of Port Harcourt (UNIORT) Alumni Association has denied media report that former president Goodluck Jonathan was parading a fake doctorate degree he claimed to have obtained from the university decades ago.
The former students of UNIORT confirmed that Jonathan duly enrolled into the school and diligently finished his academic works that earned him the doctorate degree.
National President of the association, Chris Adokeme, in a statement in Abuja, at the weekend, challenged anyone in doubt to visit the school to confirm with the school authorities or consult previous statements to get details.
He said: “UNIPORT had explained in different fora that former president Jonathan got his doctorate degree in Zoology in 1995, after he obtained Master of Science degree in Hydrobiology and Fisheries in 1985 and a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology in 1981.”
Adokeme suspected that some unnamed politicians might have begun another round of media campaign, like in 2015, to possibly tamper with the credibility of the former president, particularly as 2019 election draws closer.
He, however, challenged the columnist, Olatunji Dare, to unearth academic sleaze of many Nigerian leaders with questionable academic attainment and not the doctorate degree of Jonathan, that could be traced.
Meanwhile, Ikechukwu Eze, the Media Adviser to Dr. Jonathan, has responded to the article casting aspersions on the former president’s academic qualifications.
A press release by the media aide made to THECITIZEN on Sunday, stated as follows:
Our attention has been drawn to an article written by a newspaper columnist Dr. Olatunji Dare in which he hid behind innuendo to criticize former President Jonathan’s new book and cast aspersions on his doctorate degree.
Writing in his column of Tuesday November 27, in the Nation newspaper, Dare in a piece entitled ‘Matters Miscellaneous’, weighed in on the prevailing robust media reviews of Jonathan’s new book ‘My Transition Hours’.
In his intervention, he chose to go with the opinion of the cynical minority that had typically assumed a dim mien, even before reading the book.
Coincidentally, the popular writer let down his guard by allowing himself to fall into the same unscholarly trap