Africa-Press – Uganda. The management of Team University has come under pressure from the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) for presenting Mr Johnson Sakaja—the outgoing Senator of Nairobi—with a Bachelor of Science degree.
AACC, a Nairobi-based fellowship of 500 member churches who together represent more than half a million Christians in Africa, wants Team University to revoke the said degree.
Mr Sakaja, who is a candidate in the race for the position of governor of Nairobi City, presented the degree to meet the provisions of a law that require a candidate in the races for county and parliamentary elections to have a minimum education of a university degree.
The degree has, however, since become the subject of more than four different petitions in the High Court of Kenya.
The degree is also the subject of an investigation by the National Council of Higher Education (NHCE). Despite all of this, Team university has kept a quiet presence.
Whereas the vice chancellor, Prof Lutalo Bbosa, did not pick calls to his known mobile number, Mr Henry Mwesigwa—the university’s publicist—declined to take up an opportunity to address himself to questions around the degree. He told Sunday Monitor that he “can only be available to address those issues on Monday.”
Team University’s silence comes at a time the AACC is seeking a detailed explanation from the university about the circumstances under which the said degree was issued and disciplinary action against the university’s officials who issued it.
In their June 14 letter, the AACC also demanded that the university provide it with a certified copy of the list of those who graduated on October 21, 2016 together with Mr Sakaja.
In the same letter, the religious organisation asks to be furnished with a copy of Mr Sakaja’s admission letter, details of payment of tuition fees and the mode of instruction leading up to the award of the degree in question.
The body also demanded for evidence that Mr Sakaja attended all the classes or minimum threshold of classes required to graduate whether physical or online.
“Mr Sakaja was a nominated Member of Parliament in Kenya between 2013 and 2017. Therefore it is not practically possible that he physically attended classes in Team University as the university has no campus in Kenya and from the available records in the Kenyan parliament, there is no evidence of Sakaja’s absenteeism from parliament to enable him to have physically attended the school,” the letter argues.
The AACC further argues that Team University had not been licensed to offer online lessons at the time when Mr Sakaja claims to have gone to school there.
“As for online classes, your university was not licensed to offer online classes and indeed did not offer any such classes during the period between 2012 and 2016 when Mr Sakaja claims to have attended the school,” the letter states.
It further states that Mr Sakaja has only travelled to Uganda once, on October 17, 2014, while on parliamentary duty.
The letter is also seeking an explanation why the degree that was reportedly issued to the Kenyan politician is categorised as “Bachelor of Science in Management (External)” and not “Bachelor of Science in Management” as was captured in the graduation booklet.
It also demanded for an explanation why Mr Sakaja’s name neither appears on the graduation list nor the addendum of the graduation booklet.
It was not possible to establish from Mr Mwesigwa whether the university had responded to the letter, but Prof Mary Okwakol—the executive director of the National Council for Higher Education (NHCE)—told Sunday Monitor that the Council had received a copy of the said letter. She, however, could say whether it was a point of reference in the investigations aimed at establishing the authenticity of the degree.
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