ASARI-DOKUBO OPENS A UNIVERSITY

SOURCE: PREMIUM TIMES

Asari-Dokubo establishes university, names it after King Amachree
According to new reports, former Niger Delta militant and current
leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, Asari Dokubo, is
now a proud owner of a university in Benin Republic...
From Premium Times
The leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, NDPVF, Muhajid
Asari-Dokubo has joined the swelling rank of private university
proprietors with his establishment of a university in the neighbouring
Republic of Benin.
Mr. Asari-Dokubo, who already owns a soccer academy in the West
African country and another one in Abuja, said the university, which
will be known as King Amachree African University, KAAU, had already
been accredited to commence degree programmes beginning September
2014.
He told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview in Abuja that the proposed
university, named after his ancestor, was a product of his two
existing institutions in Benin Republic, namely King Amachree
Automobile/ICT Royal Academy and King Amachree Arts Academy. Both of
them, he added, currently award Diploma to their students.
Mr. Asari-Dokubo said he chose to establish the institutions in Benin
Republic because he does not only live there, but has adopted it as
his country.
"What we have now, we are awarding only diploma now. "By next
September, Insha Allah, the university will start," Mr. Asari-Dokubo,
who dropped out of University of Calabar, he said.
"For now we have King Amachree Automobile/ICT Royal Academy and King
Amachree Arts Academy. Two of them were merged. We have merged the two
of them into king Amachree African University.
"King Amachree is my great ancestor. He was king of the Kingdom of new Calabar."
On his soccer academy, the 50 year old Mr. Asari-Dokubo, an indigene
of Rivers State, who refused to be tagged a former militant, said it
was established to train the youth in soccer free of charge.
"We plan to engage the youths. It is free. We have a soccer academy in
Abuja and we have another one in Republic of Benin," he said.
More Nigerians are forced to go to Benin Republic, Ghana, Togo and
other neigbhouring countries to acquire education due to the incessant
labour disputes and industrial actions within the Nigerian university
system as well as the deplorable state of education in the country.
Currently, students of both the federal and state universities in
Nigeria are at home due to the strike embarked upon by the Academic
Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, over the refusal of the Federal
Government to honour its 2009 agreement with the union.
Other unions within the education sector, including the Senior Staff
Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, have also embarked on
solidarity strike while the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, and
Non-Academic Staff Union, NASU, are reportedly on the verge of doing
towing that path.
Students of the over 50 private universities in Nigeria, whose fees
can only be afforded the rich, are however, in session.
Mr. Asari-Dokubo is, like former Niger Delta militants enjoying
massive patronage from the current administration, believe to be very
wealthy but his source of income is largely unknown.
There were speculation he made his fortune stealing crude oil in the
Niger Delta. But he denied engaging in such practices, telling PREMIUM
TIMES he had never been part of any act capable of endangering the
Delta.