The PhD Scandal: President Bio Must Act Now
Dear President Maada Bio,
Good Greetings Sir. This is the first time I am writing an open letter to a President of Sierra Leone.
Mr. President, I have never addressed you directly or indirectly nor have I ever levied criticisms or poured encomium on your administration since you assumed office in 2018. However, given the scale and depth of the current “PhD” scandal in our country, I feel obliged to respectfully implore you to issue an urgent directive that directs all government employees, including ministers to produce evidence of their highest academic qualifications.
Mr. President, the interview granted by the ACC Commissioner, Mr. Francis Ben Kelfala to the BBC Focus on Africa Program about what I characterize as the “PhD-Gate” currently wrenching our country, caused me to simultaneously titter and despairingly groan, leaving me in a state of illimitable disquietude. I am not a lawyer and therefore cannot question the validity of the claim that the learned Commissioner does not have the locus standi to prosecute the alleged infractors of Sierra Leone’s educational statutes. Nonetheless, as Head of State and Government, you have the absolute authority to clean up any mess in any government department or parastatal.
In this regard, Your Excellency, I respectfully request your immediate intervention in this matter. If you fail to act, this scandal has the potential to undermine, in the short and long term, the grand educational desires of our compatriots, especially those interested in pursuing graduate studies in Western Europe, Australia, and North America, among other destinations. Thus, I recommend that you dismiss all those that have misrepresented their academic qualifications, whether they used such invented qualifications in seeking their current positions or not.
Your Excellency, it is my hope that your advisers will not dissuade you from exposing the fraudsters bent on vitiating our country’s image in the global academic community. I am not interested in criticizing the current educational system in our country at this point. I am however interested in the extirpation of this brazen fraudulent scheme and the eventual prosecution of its perpetrators.
I hope my recommendation will meet with your warm consideration Sir.
Sincerely,
Professor Joseph J. Bangura
USA
Note from the Editor: Professor Joseph Bangura (photo) is a Sierra Leonean Professor of History based in the United States of America. He is the author of the ground-breaking study titled: The Temne of Sierra Leone.
Professor Joseph Bangura is one of Sierra Leone’s brilliant academics in the diaspora. He was the most celebrated Student Union Secretary General of his generation at Fourah Bay College in 1992/1993.
Comments