US COLLEGE SAYS IT DID NOT AWARD MBA TO STELLA ODUAH AS IT HAS NO MASTERS PROGRAMME

Stella Oduah, Nigeria's Minister of Aviation who is embroiled in a
scandal of towering proportions in the ministry, faces new integrity
questions as her Masters' degree has been challenged by the United
States school which supposedly awarded it.
Her resume, which she presented to the Senate as a ministerial nominee
in 2011, indicated she obtained a Master's degree in Business
Administration (MBA) from St. Paul's College Lawrenceville, Virginia,
United States.
But SaharaReporters has learned from the President of the college that
it has never in its 125-year history had a graduate school or graduate
program.
The Provost Vice President of Academic Affairs, and the Vice President
of Institutional Development said in response to our inquiries, "We
don't offer any graduate programs here."
Similarly, the school's website states: "Saint Paul's College is
accredited by the Commission of Colleges of the Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate [bachelor's] degrees."
There is no mention of graduate degrees.
The Minister's documentation shows she received an undergraduate
degree in accounting from the college in 1982, but Dr. Claud Flythe,
St. Paul's current president, could neither confirm nor deny this
during a phone conversation with SaharaReporters. Further
verification with the Office of Alumni Affairs is also currently
impossible, the school said, because the college has been closed since
June 2013 to loss of its accreditation.
"[Oduah] realized very early in life the indispensability of a sound
education in her growth plans in life and therefore pursued her
education with all diligence and sense of purpose," her documents
claimed, adding that a determination "to have the best education at
the highest level" prompted her stay at the Virginia college in 1983
for the MBA programme.
As her public relations machinery marched on, in December 2012 The Sun
newspaper published an article headlined "Stella Oduah: An Amazon of
transformation," which lauded her "MBA from St Paul's College,
Lawrenceville Virginia USA." The story also praised her for being an
official who brought her "rich educational background to bear on the
aviation sector by automating revenue centers in all the agencies and
parastatals to boost their revenue profile and enhance transparency
and accountability in the system."
In October, SaharaReporters broke the story that Mrs. Oduah, a former
campaign manager for President Goodluck Jonathan, purchased two
bulletproof BMW cars worth $ 1.6 Million (N255m) through the Nigerian
Civil Aviation Authority, for her own use.
Following an investigation, the House of Representatives Committee on
Aviation dismissed the Minister's pleas of innocence and all her
rebuttals during her testimony. The committee's report, which was
subsequently adopted by the House, declared that no budgetary
appropriation had been made for the purchase of the cars, and that the
NCAA proposal for their purchase was rejected.
President Jonathan also set up a three-member administrative panel to
investigate the matter, but he immediately travelled out of the
country with Mrs. Oduah and Colonel Dasuki, the National Security
Adviser who was to serve as a member of the panel. Not only did the
panel submit its report much later than the two weeks it was given for
the assignment, Mr. Jonathan has refused to release its report.
Mrs. Oduah's new certificate questions are certain to feed into
national concern about her credibility as an elected official, but
also about Mr. Jonathan's credibility, and about the nation's security
apparatus which verifies official documents offered to the Senate for
official nominations.
If Mrs. Oduah deliberately deceived the Senate, it remains to be seen
if the Upper House will be sufficiently motivated to take up the
matter with the Executive.
Meanwhile, Nigeria's aviation industry continues to face a massive
challenge, with struggling airports and airlines, as well as financial
and administrative pitfalls that hinder expansion and development.