Unaccredited engineering courses: Court orders UNICAL to pay N55m to eight students

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The federal high court in Calabar has ordered the University of Calabar to pay N55 million to eight ex-students admitted into the institution’s engineering programmes in 2021, which lacked accreditation.

In a judgment delivered by Rosemary Dugbo-Oghoghorie, the presiding judge, the court described the university’s conduct as “fraudulent, reckless, and deceitful”.

The judgment brought to an end a five-year legal dispute filed with suit number FHC/CA/CS/117/21 in 2021 by Idiong Godwin and seven other students, referred to as the “UNICAL 8”.

Defendants in the suit are: the University of Calabar, Florence Obi, its former vice Chancellor, and four other individuals.

The students approached the court after discovering that the engineering programmes, into which they had been admitted, lacked accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).

According to the plaintiffs, the university presented the programmes as “fully operational” in its faculty handbooks and public representations.

The plaintiffs said that it was only after they had progressed to their third and fourth year, paid their fees, and completed examinations that the NUC, during a resource verification exercise, directed them to revert to 200 level because the courses were not accredited.

According to the students, some departments were later discontinued entirely, leaving them stranded academically.

In its defence, the university argued that accreditation follows a process and claimed the students were aware of the circumstances when they enrolled.

The institution also noted that the students acted of their own choice.