AUN president speaks about review of lecturer after report on conviction in Nigeria
The American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola is conducting an internal review of lecturer Bello Magaji following a report about his previous conviction. University President Dwayne Frazier said the institution had placed the employee on administrative leave and formed committees to examine the circumstances of his employment.
Frazier said this in an interview with Premium Times Nigeria. The outlet previously reported that former serviceman Bello Magaji was convicted, pardoned, and later began working at AUN.
Document review
According to Frazier, Magaji was hired before he became head of the university. The AUN president said the submitted documents contained different dates of birth, making it difficult to link the candidate to information about the former serviceman.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The military, Frazier said, could not confirm that the information and photograph provided to them concerned the same person who held the relevant rank. He also acknowledged that he was not familiar with all the nuances of Nigerian rules regarding presidential pardons.
Committee review
Frazier denied Magaji's claim that the university had not asked about his past. According to him, the employment application required applicants to provide their full work history and information about criminal convictions.
The university president stressed that, in his view, a pardon may remove the consequences of punishment but does not erase the fact of a previous conviction. The first committee is reviewing information from the job application and has already heard Magaji. It includes university staff and faculty members, as well as in-house legal counsel. Frazier did not disclose interim findings, saying they were to be made public soon.
