Our Story
When we arrived here late January 2007, we were amazed to see that University College Sedaya International (with newly established engineering departments) fall below the ranks and files of Institutions that will offer us such training. Here are some of the points to buttress this assertion:
The school of engineering has three departments namely; Electrical/Electronics, Communications/Electronics, and Mechatronics engineering. These three departments are newly introduced. The three departments are not more than three years old. One of our concerns about these programmes is the team of inexperience staff (lecturers) they parade in the school of Engineering. Most of these lecturers are graduates that are not academically balanced (Sound). The whole school (department) of Engineering that comprises of Electrical/Electronics, Communication/Eletronics and Mechatronics has only two Doctorate degree holders and most others first degree holders. Attached with this report is a printed copy of the school of Engineering staff list.
Also, the poor academic facilities in the school of Engineering are very worrisome. The laboratories are ill equipped. These three departments in the school of Engineering do not even have a single workshop. They neither have a research center nor any center of excellence in Engineering. This is very pathetic as modern Engineering degree training programmes must have workshops and research centers.
The worst of it all is that the three Engineering departments are not accredited by the Malaysian accreditation board. From our investigation, for a department to be accredited, the pioneers of such a department must be in their final year (which takes about four years); for which we have four years of Engineering. This means that if we graduate from this school, we will be graduating with an unaccredited degree. For now, that is not even what we are considering because we have withdrawn from University College Sedaya International. We are no longer their students.
A copy of their programmes with full accreditation status is attached to prove this point. This copy was downloaded from the University College Sedaya International website. Also, the copy of the requirements by the Malaysian National Accreditation Board, for a department to be accredited is attached here.
In the World rating, Malaysia is a third world country which falls under the same category as Nigeria, and we do not see how much impact their education can have on students of Rivers State, Nigeria. It is just like the parable in the Bible which says "CAN THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND, LEST THEY FALL INTO PIT". Also, Malaysia being an Islamic Country holds on to Islamic fundamentals. You can agree with me that since we are Christians, we would find most of her laws, not favorable to the kind of way we were brought up as Christians. Islamic extremism is a factor we want to guard ourselves against. Recently, two churches were burnt down in here in Malaysia. there is a radical movement against any form of Christianity in this country. We as Christians are not safe here. More so, the chairman of the Rivers State Scholarship Students Committee was attacked three days ago but as God would have it, he escaped narrowly though his shirt was torn. Also, the school authority plotted to arrest the Scholarship Students Committee Chairman illegally, but this attempt was resisted by the students; with this kind of threats to our lives, we are no longer safe in Malaysia. More so, UCSI being a business oriented owned by some persons and is bent at making profit at all cost would not just see us reveal the accreditation status of these courses and allow to us remain peacefully in Malaysia. For the safety of our lives and the betterment of our tomorrow we want to appeal to the Rivers State Government to take us out of Malaysia before lives are lost.
After observing all these abnormalities, we wrote to the then Commissioner of Education, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Odu on the 28th of February, 2007. In the letter we complained to her about the poor state of the college she sent us to, but rather than coming to the school to ascertain our complaints, she resorted to calling us wretched and ungrateful children, threatening us in diverse ways through Dr John Kester, not excluding issuing warning letters through the University college Sedaya International, seizure of our international passports by the school authority and outright deportation from Malaysia. The climax of this was the dissolution of the first Rivers state scholarship student committee that was led by Mr. Benson Clever Charles by the school authority. After the dissolution of this committee we were like sheep without Shepherd. These incidences made us to see the school as partners of the persons behind our predicaments. However, after series of complaints to the school management on the need for leadership, they finally communicated to us that the state government directed them to conduct an election which finally led to the formation of the present committee by August, 2007. On assumption of office, the present committee deemed it necessary to address the various issues that are bothering the students. These in particular were the various inadequacies that we have explained above. Their bold step and commitment to address these various ailing issues led the present committee to communicate to the state government through series of letters, but all their attempts proved abortive as there was no response to any of the letter they sent.
Furthermore, as events unfold itself, the students were place at a tight corner as there were no channels for their questions and grievances to be addressed. Worst of all, the school issued a memo titled "progression to year one", on the 6th of November, 2007 which sparked up so many questions and reactions among the students, knowing fully-well that Sedaya College does not have the manpower and facilities to give us quality education. Moreso, the selective selection and subsequent transfer of three students from Sedaya College to Canada also made the students to question the school management through the executive for them to explain the basis on which these students are to be transferred to Canada leaving the rest of us to study unaccredited Engineering courses in Sedaya College. On approaching the school management, they informed our executives, that the selective transfer of students was not based on any academic performance, but they were acting based on directives from the state government. On this note, the students on a general assembly unanimously decided to stop attending lectures owing to the fact that none of their plight and complaints to the state government from January till this date have been attended to. Rather than the Ministry of Education coming to our aid while we had stopped attending classes, they resorted in blackmailing us to our parents. Some of these blackmails are that we are involved in drug businesses of which everyone knows that death penalty is the wages for such act in Malaysia. Also, that half of the scholarship students had sold their passports. How can this be true? If it were to be true, these students would have been deported by the Malaysian immigration. They also tried deceiving our parents that we have cars on our possessions, but these are all blasphemies as our allowance from January till December is not even enough to buy a single car. Our bank records are evidence to ascertain this fact.
Thus, on hearing this from the Ministry of Education which is supposed to be our guardian, it was crystal clear that the people whom we thought that will foster our welfare were committed not to listen to our plight but to connive with those that want to sabotage the Rivers State Government's laudable project. It was premised on these false accusations which we have understood to mean rendering us as endangered persons in Malaysia that we decided to plead with the state government as a matter of urgency to take us home as a way of correcting the wrong impression and misrepresentation of our image and requests by the Rivers State Ministry of Education.
Sir, may we use this opportunity to remind you of our total commitment to protect and project the image of our dear state both in academics and in all ramification. Our grievances should not be misconstrued and misinterpreted, but the steps that we took to redress these anomalies were the only options and medium that we could use to pour out our grievances and convey the message over to the state government of the ugly situation we are being subjected to by our "callous task masters". We therefore wish to use this medium to formally convey our requests to the Rivers State Government.
- 1. That, Nigeria, being a colonial state of the West, western education (Canada, Australia, Europe) would be the right option for this Project (Human Capital Development): This is premised on the fact that Malaysian universities do not offer oil and gas related courses. Moreover, the Malaysian government sends her students out to acquire western education in the field of engineering and other disciplines. This is as a result of the present inadequate technocrats they face in these fields. Our choice of the West is based on the fact that their universities have the courses we intend studying and their engineering programs are research based. They have vast links to the industries and their industrial attachment is a very important aspect of an engineering education. Through this, the wealth of knowledge that is being demonstrated by expatriates from these industries can be transferred to the students. For instance the University of Calgary, Canada, has all the engineering disciplines; Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, Civil, Mechatronics, Nano-technology, software, Petroleum, Oil and Gas, and Computer engineering. University of Calgary is also known as the Capital of engineering in Canada. While the University of Waterloo also has all the courses mentioned above. Waterloo has its own advantages as it is synonymous with industrial attachment (Cooperative placement programme). It is also the best engineering University in Canada, of which the tuition fees is considerate.
- 2. The consultancy job should be taken away from Dr. John Kester. This due to the fact that, he has connived with the school to defraud our dear state and also frustrating the students. Moreso, asking the school to seize our passports each time we make a reasonable complain. He has avoided seeing the students for the past ten months, reasons best known to him. The most annoying part of it was the statement that was made by Dr. John Kester in one of our meetings with him on February this year. He boasted "Who is that Rivers man that you will complain to? Tell me, and I (Dr. J. Kester) will make sure he or she loses his or her appointment": he beats his chest. Imagine a non Rivers indigene! Imagine an Igbo man seating on the fraudulent money he made from the State and making such statement!! In fact most of us wept when he made this statement. We started asking ourselves questions. Could it be that the River State Government connived with this man to sell our destiny and future and that of the state into the hands of this man? Or is it that truly there is nobody in Rivers State that can stand against injustice? Or every Rivers Indigene is under the rule of Dr. John Kester?
- 3. Moreover, we want to equally appeal to the Rivers state government to investigate all the financial transactions between Dr John Kester and Sedaya College that involves Rivers State Government third batch Scholarship students. The frauds involved here runs into millions if not billions of naira. Take for instance a situation where Dr. John Kester paid just about RM 7,500( about two hundred fifty thousand naira) while he paid about RM 22,500 (about nine hundred thousand naira) for the tuition fees for those of us doing foundation programmes in University College Sedaya International and University of Nottingham respectively. On seeing the kind of money he would make, he decided to do everything within his reach to keep us in this incompetent school. He told us (the present welfare committee members) that he has ordered the school to buy a dilapidated building of which the school did and for the past two months had been under renovation. He (Dr. John Kester) equally advised University College Sedaya International to introduce new engineering programs (Oil and Gas, Mechanical, Civil and Chemical Engineering) all in a bid to keep us in this school. One question that we keep on asking the school authority is this: if the programmes they established some years ago still suffer the attendant shortcomings when will the planned new programs achieve international standards? Till date they have not been able to provide answer(s) to the question. Today, the school is now parading it as their new engineering campus. Recently, when they got information from Dr. John Kester that Rivers State Government would be sending some delegates to come and access the School, they went hiring equipment all in a bid to camouflage the college as a standard school. All these deceits would not work as we have already made up our minds not to go back to that school. University College Sedaya International should note that we are not cheap, and cannot be use as experimental species to test-run their newly planned Engineering programmes. If that happens then the hopes of the Rivers State Government and our parents would have been dashed into thin air.
Sequel to the above mentioned inadequacies in Sedaya College; we therefore use this medium to inform you of our formal withdrawal from Sedaya College. This decision was reached based on the fact that Sedaya College is no longer safe for us; Malaysian Universities cannot offer us the kind of training that would keep us in a position to compete favorably with other Engineers worldwide; let alone Sedaya College, and also our foundation studies would not be accepted by any other university in and outside Malaysia and that implies that we have spent one year of our lives fruitlessly.
MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENT (27TH NOVEMBER 2007)
Despite the formal notification of our collective withdrawal from Sedaya College, the school, very desperate to retain us colluded with the consultant and selected just a few of us (28 in number) and gave them expulsion letters. As at 28th of November, over 200 of the 263 of us in this college has filled withdrawal forms. We pleaded with the school to provide us our return tickets so that we can all come back home to start life all over instead of spending all our years studying for questionable degrees in Malaysia but they have refused. All they are doing is to continually paint those 28 of us in very bad light. None of the 28 of us is guilty of any allegations laid against them. Please anything that can be done for the Rivers State Government to know the true position of things here will be appreciated. Our situation here is like we are held on hostage by the school authorities and the consultant. If they are sending the 28 of us home, then they should send all of us. This is because we cannot watch our brothers being sent back home for no reason just because all of us resolved to embark on a moratorium.
It may interest you to know that on the 7th of December 2007, some delegates were sent from amongst us to meet with the Nigerian High Commissioner here in Malaysia to seek his diplomatic assistance in our situation and see how he resolve the issue of the 28 expelled students with the school. On reaching the embassy, the high commissioner welcomed us and told us that the issues of or our nationals are our concern.
The high commissioner told us that the Rivers State Government did not pass through the embassy on our coming to Malaysia but nevertheless, since we have come to the embassy and seek for assistance, the Commissioner will see what he can do and he promised to save the situation of the 28 expelled students.
On the 10th of December 2007, the school management called the 28 expelled students and told them that since our High Commissioner has come into this issue and has signed to be our guarantor, which they all accepted.
Despite the intervention of the High Commissioner on our situation to resolve the issue of the 28 expelled students, on the 18th of December 2007, the school management called again the 28 expelled students together with the Malaysia immigration led by the Director of Enforcement Department. During our meeting with the immigration, the Director of Enforcement brought out a letter from Rivers State Government given to them by the school management stating that the 28 expelled students should be brought back to the state and that our parents are aware of the letter. They told us that our embassy is also aware of the letter which when we went back to the embassy, the high commissioner told us that the embassy is ignorant of that letter and instantly requested for the copy of the letter from the school. What actually struck our minds most was the letter from the state through the office of the Ministry of Education was not even signed by the Permanent Secretary, rather it was signed by the Director of Administration. The immigration officers also told the 28 expelled students to bring their international passports for cancellation of their student pass and processing of their return tickets on the 24th of December 2007 and that if they fail to comply their biometrics will be taken and they would be forced out of the country which would tarnish their future.
On the date of submission and cancellation of student pass of the 28 students, the immigration told them that the other students sent their delegates to them also requesting for their own student's pass cancellation and procession of their return tickets as a show of solidarity and commitment to this course. Consequent to that, the immigration gave the 28 expelled students a two weeks special pass instead of the one week special pass they previously wanted to give. This is to enable them cancel the general student pass and process their return tickets. They also told us they have confirmed from the school and the school had given them the authority to process their tickets. They later called the delegates to bring the general students international passports for visa cancellation.
On reaching the office of the immigration, with passports of the general students, they met the 28 expelled students there of which the immigration had called earlier and the delegates were amazed since the immigration had promised them to process the general tickets including the 28 students expelled, now issuing only 11 tickets to the expelled students for them to leave the country on the 2nd of January 2008, while the rest of the expelled students will be leaving on the 9th of January 2008. The remaining students were asked to go back and obtain permission from the school before processing of their return tickets shall be done. On arrival to the School, authorities at the school told the delegates that they have given the immigration the go ahead to prepare the return tickets. This prompted the delegates to go to the embassy to brief the high commissioner the game the School authorities and the immigration are playing: and we pleaded to the high commissioner to intervene because we want to go back together.
The high commissioner instantly sent a letter to the immigration that they should suspend their action. This they did asking the 28 expelled to bring back their International Passports for a two weeks extention, saying, by this, the whole matter would have been resolved and the 28 expelled would be leaving the country for home.
Thank You
Signed: Third batch Rivers State Scholarship Students, Malaysia.