OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT  

255 North D Street, San Bernardino, CA 92401, U.S.A. Telephone (909) 884.9000 ¨ Fax: (909) 885.3000 ¨ www.amheritageuniv.net

Yerima’s $1m donation tears US varsity apart: A Rejoinder

While we commend your story on American Heritage University, published on March 30, 2008, we also want to clarify some obvious misrepresentations and what seems to be outright falsification. First there is no controversy of any kind rocking the institution. Instead its foundation has just been firmly entrenched and retrofitted to reflect a new vision that can be considered a quantum leap.

It has just shifted from its previous online only institution to a more traditional classroom environment and added more course content and programs including criminal justice and nursing at its new location in downtown San Bernardino.

A rift close to the magnitude described in your story would have made such a transformation nearly impossible given the tough standards and regulatory requirements we have to meet to function as a full -fledge university…..

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More importantly though, we want to state that your reporter was disingenuous in the questions he sent to me as president of American Heritage University. Since we operate a very transparent organization, communication with your reporter, Oladimeji Abitogun who also doubles as representative of pointblank news, was very cordial. We answered his entire questions. He later called to say there was no validity to the information he had been fed.

But he failed to raise the issues that have now become the focal point of the story. We would have provided details since we have nothing to hide. For the record we want to clarify the circumstances that led to the $6000 bill the university refused to pay.

It was incurred by those who saw the honorary degree and the corresponding ceremony as a harvest season. Since we are not in the business of opportunism we disagreed. We however know that universities all over the world thrive on endowments similar to what Yerima had offered.

Responsibilities were shared among the parties in the entire event including First Legendary and its officials. Our role was limited to the actual conferment of the degree in addition to facilitating the procurement of traveling documents for the former governor and his entourage.

But a third party saw it differently and authorized another individual to organize the event without the knowledge and consent of AHU officials.

The same person who is not an official or employee of the university saw awarding honorary degrees as a potential source of income and believed that each time I traveled to Nigeria, I returned with serious “Ghana must go bags” after secret ceremonies.

We went to great length to explain this to Abitogun and others that no such ceremonies ever took place including secretly awarding honorary doctorate degree to Mariam Babaginda. In any case, honorary degrees by their very nature have little value and they become even more valueless when they are secretly awarded.

 

TonyBEOgiamien

Professor Tony Ogiamien

President

April 4, 2008