Era of plagiarism, sexual harassment in UNIZIK over

The new Vice Chancellor, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof. Charles Esimone has declared zero tolerance to plagiarism, sexual harassment and inducement in his administration.

Esimone made the assertion while taking the mantle of leadership from his predecessor, Prof. Joseph Ahaneku at the university auditorium.

He assured that a mechanism would be put in place to identify culprits and punish them accordingly.

The Vice-Chancellor further pledged to promote highest standard of academic excellence in the institution.

“I’m coming to this job with a vision primed on promoting the highest standards of academic excellence, productive community service, administrative reforms, discipline and advances in a matrix of human capacity building, infrastructural development, staff/students welfare and internally generated revenue,” he said.

He also pledged to create non-discriminatory, non-selective and meritorious research conducive environment to ensure excellence in research.

His words, “We’ll enthrone merit and this will reflect in our promotion assessment criteria as we seek to encourage publications and impact factoral journals in every discipline.

“Resources will be provided so that lectures are delivered using digital resources in line with transformative higher education pedagogy which positively inculcates transferable skills required in industries to our students”.

Esimone also threatened to declare non-performing staff redundant and might be shown the way out if they refused to turn a new leaf.

“We will introduce digital attendance register which will require biometric fingerprints for clocking in and out of work for staff, as well as those for students to clock into the lecture hall,” he stressed.

He, however, solicited the cooperation of the institution’s staff, students and well-wishers to enable him accomplish the enormous tasks ahead of him.

“I urge all hands to be on deck to enable us catapult this university from 4,047 position to the top 200 universities in the world in the next five years,” Esimone pleaded.

Earlier, the outgoing VC, Prof. Ahaneku appealed to all stakeholders to extend the cooperation given to him to his successor, expressing confidence that he would consolidate on his achievements.