The University of Port Harcourt has declined a Freedom of Information, FOI, request for the doctorate degree records of President Goodluck Jonathan.

In a response to the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, a Rivers State-based civil society organization, the university said a request for President Jonathan’s academic records did not fall within the provisions of the FOI law. “The Management of the University has carefully considered your request vis-a-vis the FOI Act,” the university stated in their letter dated 26th February, 2015, and signed by Eric Loveday Osuo Abonemi, the institution’s Legal Officer.

“It is my instructions to inform you that your request does not come within the relevant provisions of the FOI Act for its practicability or for the University to provide such details as requested.

“Details of the Ph.D Degree of President Goodluck Jonathan in the University of Port Harcourt cannot therefore be made available to you.”

The Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law had filed an FOI request, three weeks ago, to the university seeking relevant details of Mr. Jonathan’s doctorate qualifications.

The letter requested the following information relating to the president’s doctorate qualification, citing the provisions of Sections 2 and 4 of the FOI Act, 2011:
1. The title of the president’s doctorate dissertation
2. Year of registration as a doctorate candidate
3. Name of his doctorate supervisor(s)
4. Name of his external examiner(s)
5. Comments/reports of the external examiner of the dissertation/thesis
6. Photocopy of the dissertation/thesis
7. Date of graduation from the university

The organization said it was willing to bear any cost the university might incur in making photocopies of the requested documents and for posting them.
President Jonathan was admitted into the Department of Zoology (now renamed Animal and Environmental Biology), University of Port Harcourt, in 1977, where he graduated with Second Class Honours (Upper Division).

In 1985, Mr. Jonathan obtained a Master of Science degree in Hydrobiology and Fisheries, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Zoology 10 years later.
Both degrees were also from the University of Port Harcourt.

Lately, Mr. Jonathan’s academic qualifications have come under increased scrutiny ahead of the forthcoming general elections. Critics have accused the president of failing to complete his doctorate programme. In a response to an enquiry by Punch Newspaper in January, the university dismissed such claims as having “neither legs nor grounds to stand on”.

The university had also told any person or organization seeking additional information on Mr. Jonathan’s qualifications to contact the school authorities.
“We have absolutely nothing to hide as an institution that has a statutory mandate to advance the frontiers of knowledge,” William Wodi, the university’s Deputy Registrar (Information), had told the newspaper.

It is unclear why the university declined to release Mr. Jonathan’s academic qualifications to the civil society organization after giving that commitment.

Jiti Ogunye, a Lagos-based lawyer, said the president’s academic records ought to be freely available in the university and not be “opaque or hidden”.

“The FOI is applicable to the academic records of a public officer whose academic records are being requested by a Nigerian citizen or a nongovernmental organization duly registered in Nigeria with a view to promoting accountability and transparency in government,” Mr. Ogunye said.

“The academic records of the president are not the medical records of the president in which case a medical officer can say the FOI is exempted, or the records between a lawyer and his client which are covered by the confidentiality rule.”

WHAT THE FOI ACT SAYS
According to Section 14(1) of the FOI ACT, subject to subsection (2), a public institution must deny an application for information that contains personal information and information exempted under this subsection includes:
(a) files and personal information maintained with respect to clients, patients, residents, students, or other individuals receiving social, medical, educational, vocation, financial, supervisory or custodial care or services directly or indirectly from public institutions;…
(2) A public institution shall disclose any information that contains personal information if –
(a) the individual to whom it relates consents to the disclosure; or
(b) the information is publicly available
(3) Where disclosure of any information referred to in this section would be in the public interest, and if the public interest in the disclosure of such information clearly outweighs the protection of the privacy of the individual to whom such information relates, the public institution to whom request for disclosure is made shall disclose such information subject to Section 14(2) of this Act.
Mr. Ogunye said that an institution might attempt to hide under Section 14(1)(a) to decline disclosure of information.
“My argument is, this information is publicly available and ought to be disclosed. The president has said he obtained his Ph.D in that institution, so it’s publicly available,” Mr. Ogunye said.
“So why will an institution refuse to disclose an information that is publicly available? The university has acted wrongly and can be compelled by the suit of the non-governmental organization concerned to disclose the information.”

Source: http://saharareporters.com/2015/03/19/uniport-hides-details-president-jonathan%E2%80%99s-doctorate-degree

Jonah show your certificate

come March 28th, straight to Otuoke

Change all the way

Jonathan is a PhD holder.... Move On!!!!

macpetrus:
Jonathan is a PhD holder.... Move On!!!!

Short and simple.

OGAH IS A DIPLOMA HOLDER!

Rad1cal:





Short and simple.

can we see his paper work?

macpetrus:
Jonathan is a PhD holder.... Move On!!!!

thesis pls

Toktee:
thesis pls

Are you asking Me?... So until you write thesis before you can be awarded "DR" in Nigeria?.. Just ask the Top Guns n and big men how they get or receive the name "DR to their names!!!

Take the case to court.

Let the judiciary interpret the law and not the University.

Mtchew trash

Gej till sahara reporters get sense

Nawa ooo! So other researchers can not use president's thesis for their work or the thesis is a trash(perhaps it does not even exist!), why must FOI be needed to access anybody's PhD thesis? for God's sake a copy should be in the public domain!

GEJ show us ur thesis cos I dey suspect say since na zoology u study naija fit be ur lab rats

Jonathan I stand for!!

Where is buhari waec?

macpetrus:
Jonathan is a PhD holder.... Move On!!!!

Evidence
Evidence
Evidence
Evidence
Evidence

macpetrus:

Are you asking Me?... So until you write thesis before you can be awarded "DR" in Nigeria?.. Just ask the Top Guns n and big men how they get or receive the name "DR to their names!!!

You just don't know how st*pid you sound with this comment. So I can say "You don't need to write a project before you get your B.Sc? Dumb dude

macpetrus:
Jonathan is a PhD holder.... Move On!!!!

Has anyone located GEJ's missing thesis yet?

Exclusive: So we went looking for the thesis and certificates of Pres. Jonathan & Sambo – this is what we found



As the 14 February, 2015 date for the presidential elections draws closer, supporters and critics of the country’s two major parties, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have been at loggerheads over the candidates of their respective parties.

In December, it crystallized into a debate over the academic credentials of both candidates, especially those of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

The president’s profile on the State House website reads thus: “He graduated with Second Class Upper honours in 1981. In 1985 and 1995 he studied for his Master’s and Ph.D degrees in Hydrobiology and Fisheries Biology, and Zoology respectively, from the same University.”

This gave him the status of being Nigeria’s most educated President ever. This was until the masses inspired by the increasing influence of social media and improved citizens participation in governance, began to ask questions.

Some began to ask, for a president with issues of eloquence and clarity of thought according to his critics, where was the evidence of his doctorate degree? For one whose campaign team has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify his main challenger over the same issue of academic qualifications, wasn’t this being a proverbial case of removing the speck in another’s eyes when a log is embedded in the accuser’s?

It caused so much of a storm; we went in search of the president’s thesis.

Mrs. Victoria Boyo was Head of Department (HOD) of Home Economics at the time when Dr. Jonathan was a lecturer at the Rivers State University of Education confirmed that he was a colleague then. “He was one of those very quiet people who couldn’t hurt a fly,” she recalls. “He hardly participated in even campus politics but as far as his qualifications are concerned, I don’t know anything.”

At the departmental library of the Department of Zoology (now Animal & Environmental Biology), a dedicated two-hour search by two volunteers combing through the shelves, yielded nothing.
The resident librarian, who joined the departmental staff in 2006 says she got to the task of arranging the projects, dissertations and theses of past students at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels as soon as she arrived. “I never once came across the president’s doctoral thesis,” she said, on condition of anonymity.

The catalog in the library was no help as it lists only theses submitted from 2007.

The entire department moved to its present location on third floor of the four-storey building that houses the entire College of Sciences in 1993 from the old Choba Park campus that at present still has the Faculty of Education. While it is possible that many copies of such documents were misplaced in the relocation, Jonathan’s could not have been among the affected ones, as he supposedly submitted it two years later, in 1995.

Another member of staff who wouldn’t want her name in print, mentioned that during an accreditation exercise and inspection tour of the school as recently as 2014, officials of the National Universities’ Commission (NUC) asked to be shown the departmental library. While inside, they asked to see the thesis of Jonathan, the department’s most prominent export ever, but it was unavailable. At the time, she says, a new HOD had just been appointed who claimed not to know the status of the missing document, leaving the NUC officials bewildered.

Interestingly, Jonathan’s Master’s dissertation obtained in 1986 in Hydro-Biology and Fisheries Biology specialization in the same course (Zoology), was also nowhere to be found – even though there are some that date back as far as 1981.

Of course, record-keeping in Nigeria is notoriously poor and many universities are yet to digitize their libraries.

Roseline Konya, professor of pharmacology and toxicology, and one-time Commissioner for Environment under the administration is currently the Dean of Graduate Studies at the university. Back in 1995, she supervised one Asim E. Eno. By virtue of the time of submission, Konya could have also supervised the President if he was a doctorate student then. Attempts to reach her proved abortive as she was “not on seat” when this reporter visited. Mails to her have been unreplied.

“Who you wan put for trouble,” someone in her office said after offering her email address, while refusing to give up her mobile number. “She will never reply you on this matter.”

Below are pictures from the thesis of one Asim E. Eno who also submitted a thesis in 1995, the same year Jonathan supposedly did his too.





The current Head of Department for Animal & Environmental Biology, Professor Florence Nduka, also could not be reached for comments as at the time of publishing this report as she was also “not on seat”.

An official enquiry submitted to the school administration has not been replied.

An extensive search online revealed a conference paper, “Identification of West African Estuarine Shrimp and Crab Larvae” which was co-written by Jonathan, G.E. with Powell, C.B. and Hart, A.I. (1985) on Aquatic Commons, the directory for publications on natural marine, estuarine, brackish and fresh water environments. At this time, the president was still a lowly lecturer in the Department of Biology at the Rivers State College of Education.

In the aforementioned 1985 paper, Jonathan self-references a publication which is in all likelihood, his Master’s dissertation. Titled “Stage 1 larvae of fresh and brackish water decapod crustaceans (excluding Natantlal) of the Niger Delta”, it is however dated 1984, two years earlier than the quoted date which is present in all his official profiles and bios. Further search on Aquatic Commons for the PhD thesis turned up no results whatsoever for the year 1995.

There were a few other conference papers online in the Web of Science journal under the name “G.E. Jonathan”. While it was not possible to determine accurately the identity of the author, they were published in 2003, 2006 and 2010 which would make him (if he were the one) a multitasker and intellectual of the highest order, combining the challenges of governance with the rigours of academic research.

No single academic journal has an online record of his research from 1985 – 1995 when Jonathan should have been very active as an academic scholar, which is why the renewed activity between 2003-2010 when he was in active politics, seems suspect.

“The first person listed is usually the author of the publication and other names are usually those of scholars or senior colleagues in the field, to give the paper weight and attract favourable reviews”, explained the Librarian. ”It is very possible that he did not author those papers.”

Read More

Zedric:


You just don't know how st*pid you sound with this comment. So I can say "You don't need to write a project before you get your B.Sc? Dumb dude

St*pid?... I can see that you hava a very low IQ.. Who is taking about B.sc/B.tech, it another ball Game.. Just go and ask if you don't Knw

APC niggas are so upset, and quick to insult people. ..

Your brain should be donated for research

We leave WAEC dey find Ph.d

Let us assume, he does not have PhD, infact let us assume he does not have any M.Sc. But can someone just show GMB common WAEC Result?

macpetrus:

Are you asking Me?... So until you write thesis before you can be awarded "DR" in Nigeria?.. Just ask the Top Guns n and big men how they get or receive the name "DR to their names!!!

Edited

Before you can be awarded a Ph.D in any Nigerian university you must have written nothing less than 10 internationally acclaimed papers and several articles for a widely known journal in your area of specialisation.

Not only that, your Ph.D thesis must be unique and must thoroughly discuss and espouse new ideas or critic existing ones on a specific topic before you can be a Dr. Even if the president got his as far back 1990 or even earlier a single link of his work would be available online for public consumption.

I am not suprised though. Anyone can see through the charade .