Alleged academic dishonesty stirs disquiet at UNN

We carried out due diligence in promotion of reader, school insists

Tension is building in the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), over the alleged promotion of a lecturer, Dr. Lawrence Obasi, on the basis of a double journal entry publication, which many consider as evidence of academic dishonesty.

UNN is reputed for its painstaking steps it takes in assessing all administrative, non-academic and academic staff for promotion, especially those for professorial cadre, who have to show clear evidence of publications in reputable journals.

But in a bid to satisfy this rigorous hurdle, Obasi, of the Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, was accused of gaining promotion to the position of reader, by virtue of submitting one article to two academic journals.

Sources within the university confided in The Guardian that most lecturers are surprised that the university’s internal and external professorial assessors failed to unravel the academic fraud during Obasi’s assessment and subsequent promotion.

The aggrieved lecturers complained that such oversight suggests collusion, or willful negligence, stressing that “this puts the integrity of the internal and external assessors in doubt, as it does appear they did not search for the authenticity of the published works.

“It beats every imagination why an academic staff should simultaneously submit a research paper to two different journals for publication in the same year, assessed and promoted without noticing the obvious academic fraud,” the source alleged.

Investigation by The Guardian revealed that the journal articles on which Dr. Obasi was assessed and promoted were still on the websites and could have been easily located by the assessors, including L.N. OBASI, P.O. UKOHA, K.F. CHAH, and A.O. ANAGA (Synthesis, spectroscopic characterization and antibacterial screening of novel n-(benzothiazol-2-yl)ethanamides, Asian Journal of Chemistry; Vol. 23, No. 5 (2011), 2043-2045, www.asianjournalofchemistry.co.in and *L.N. Obasi, P.O. Ukoha, K.F. Chah, and A.O. Anaga (Synthesis, spectroscopic characterization and antibacterial screening of novel n-(benzothiazol-2-yl)ethanamides, Eclética Química,vol.36 no.1 São Paulo  2011, http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-46702011000100001.

Editage Insight (Resources for Authors and Journals) states that republication or simultaneous submission of a paper without permission, and or acknowledgement is considered a serious breach of academic publishing ethics, for the following reasons: It violates copyright, could distort empirical studies, amount to self-plagiarism, leads to a waste of editorial and review resources, as well as deny other authors the chance to publish their work.

But responding to The Guardian inquiries, UNN stated that Dr. Obasi’s manuscript was not sent to the two journals at the same time, noting that “It was first sent to Ecletica Quimica, on January 2, 2010, the editor acknowledged it on the 18th of January.”

In the response signed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, (Academic), Prof. James Ogbonna, the university added that since nothing was heard from the editor thereafter, “On May, 21 2010, Dr. Obasi wrote a reminder, requesting for the status of the manuscript, but the editor did not reply.

“On June 23, 2010, Dr. Obasi wrote him again, stating that if he did not reply to tell him the status, he was going to send the manuscript to another journal. On June, 23, more than six months after submitting the manuscript without reply, he then sent it to the Asian Journal of Chemistry, who reviewed it, accepted and published it,” Ogbonna added.

The DVC maintained that “Neither Dr. Obasi, nor any of the co-authors ever listed the paper published by Elcetica Quimica in their curriculum vitae,” stressing that “if the same paper were listed as published in two journals, the internal assessors and, or the external assessors would (have) detected it.