Investigations by Saharareporters.com have revealed that Philip Umeadi, Jnr., one of the eleven national commissioners at the Abuja headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, was suspended from the University of Benin for exam malpractice. Philip Umeadi, Jnr. is the third son of the late Philip Umeadi, a politician and well known lawyer, who was Chief Awolowo's running mate during the 1979 presidential elections.
Investigations by Saharareporters.com have revealed that Philip Umeadi, Jnr., one of the eleven national commissioners at the Abuja headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, was suspended from the University of Benin for exam malpractice. Philip Umeadi, Jnr. is the third son of the late Philip Umeadi, a politician and well known lawyer, who was Chief Awolowo's running mate during the 1979 presidential elections.
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Mr. Umeadi’s academic cheating, which he acknowledged in an interview with Saharareporters, makes his appointment questionable. It is also a curious development that Umeadi was appointed a commissioner by INEC Chairman Maurice Iwu, a man who has an even more serious case of academic fraud. Iwu obtained admission for graduate studies in pharmacy in England by falsely claiming to hold a first degree from Cameroon.
A University of Lagos political scientist who researches electoral matters told our correspondent that Umeadi’s and Iwu’s negative academic pasts ought to have disqualified them from appointment. “If it’s true that Umeadi and Professor Iwu have questions to answer about their certificates, then their appointment to INEC positions clearly violate the 3rd Schedule of Nigeria's 1999 constitution,” said the professor. He added that “paragraph F (14) states that a member of INEC must be a ‘person of unquestionable integrity’. By any construction of your report, the two do not qualify to hold positions with the electoral commission.”
After reviewing our findings, an Abuja-based attorney described them as “impeccable.” She also said that “Philip Umeadi’s appointment as an INEC commissioner tells of the commission’s lazy approach to checking backgrounds of persons appointed to such positions.”
Philip Umeadi Jnr.’s undergraduate studies at the University of Benin revealed a troubling path, according to several of his classmates, former lecturers as well as university officials interviewed for this report. Philip attended All Saints Primary School Onitsha and Oraukwu Grammar School and then the University of Benin where he was admitted in 1983 academic year into the faculty of law. If everything had gone well, he would have graduated in 1987, but several sources told us that a wayward social life on campus that included heavy drinking, partying and, by some accounts, gangsterism, led Philip to abandon his studies for most of his first and second years at UNIBEN.
Several former classmates told Saharareporters that Umeadi Jnr. Regularly paid some of his classmates to write and submit his term papers and assignments as he missed his classes consistently. They said his rich father funded his reckless lifestyle.
But the faculty of law at the University of Benin, which in 1985 boasted such eminent scholars as Professor Itse Sagay (who was the Dean) and Professor (Mrs.) Amanze Guobadia, soon caught on to the young Umeadi’s antics. Sources told Saharareporters that, in 1985, Philip was caught with what was popular known as "expo" (sheets of paper on which possible answers to examination questions are scribbled and smuggled into examination halls by unscrupulous students). The invigilator who caught him was Mrs. D.A Guobadia who went on to become the director general of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in Abuja.
Our sources said when Philip was caught with the cheating material, he pleaded to be allowed to pull it out of his pants. He then proceeded to chew and swallow the entire sheaf of papers, hoping to get away with denying that any illicit material was found on him. To his disappointment, Mrs. Guobadia was determined not to let him off.
Even though a strong recommendation for his expulsion from UNIBEN was sent to the university exam malpractices disciplinary committee, one university administrator told us that the committee came under severe pressure from Philip's father, who had a cozy relationship with the country’s military rulers at the time. The pressure worked. Instead of outright expulsion, Philip was rusticated from the university for four semesters.
An anonymous family source of Umeadi's told Saharareporters that Philip tried to get admission into the Faculty of Law at the University of Maiduguri, but that it did not work out. Word had leaked to UNIMAID law school that he was expelled for examination malpractices at UNIBEN.
Philip was re-admitted to complete his studies at the University of Benin where he graduated in 1990 with “a rather low grade,” according to one of his lecturers. He spent the customary one year at the Nigerian Law School and was called to bar in 1991.
One of Philip’s original classmates at UNIBEN is the current Lagos State governor, Babtunde Fashola, who graduated in 1987 from the Faculty of Law. Philip’s other classmates include Patrick Obahiagbon of Nigeria's House of Representatives, St. John Claret Ezeani, and John Iwelumo.
Efforts by Saharareporters to obtain a copy of Philip Umeadi's academic records from the University of Benin were unsuccessful. For two weeks, the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Osho, claimed that the faculty officers could not locate Umeadi's student records.
In another curious twist, Philip Umeadi Jnr.’s bio was removed from INEC’s website (www.inecnigeria.org) as soon as he got wind that Saharareporters was investigating his academic cheating. His bio is the only one missing out of all the eleven INEC commissioners listed on the website.
When Saharareporters spoke with Philip Umeadi, Jnr. about his heady undergraduate days at UNIBEN, he admitted that he lost two academic sessions for reasons he stated as "youthful exuberance." He refused to elaborate.
A highly reliable source told us that Umeadi Jnr. got the INEC job when controversial Anambra politician, Chris Uba, introduced him to Andy Uba who was then a senior presidential aide on domestic matters. Andy Uba, who is also dogged by academic fraud (having claimed three degrees, including a doctorate, that he never earned), was responsible for recommending Iwu to head INEC. Iwu, who was derelict and debt-ridden in Maryland, US, was first appointed a commissioner in the commission and later recommended to become chairman.
Philip Umeadi Jnr. Is one of Iwu’s closest aides. “His task is to package Maurice Iwu's lies to the outside world,” said a political observer conversant with the workings of INEC. He said both men played major roles in organizing the April 2007 general elections, adjudged by local and foreign observers as the worst election in Nigeria's history.
Iwu’s and Umeadi’s troubling educational backgrounds make them a perfect couple in the business of fraudulent, fuzzy educational careers. Saharareporters had extensively reported that Maurice Iwu never obtained a first degree before proceeding to the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom in 1975, contrary to the impression created in his official bio. Iwu falsely claimed he obtained his undergraduate and graduate pharmaceutical degrees from the University of Bradford.
But an e-mail sent to Omoyele Sowore of Saharareporters in January 2007 by Oliver Tipper of the University of Bradford exposed Iwu's certificate lies. The e-mail is reproduced below:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Maurice Iwu
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:19:57 +0000
Hi
I've just double-checked with our student registry department and Maurice Iwu did not do an undergraduate degree at Bradford.
He was enrolled here in 1975 for the Masters degree in Pharmacy, but we have on our records that he studied Pharmacy in Cameroon during the late 1960s before coming to Bradford.
I hope this helps
regards
Oliver
The UNILAG political scientist said he was disturbed by our findings. “It’s nothing short of tragic that the conduct of elections in Nigeria is left in the hands of men who have a lifelong career as cheats and scam artists,” he said. “If a country with sound law enforcement, and where law makers take their jobs seriously, Iwu would be arraigned before the courts for making false academic claims. And Mr. Umeadi would be given the boot immediately.”
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