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The founder and Vice Chancellor of Dominion University, Prof Ezekiel H.S Bangura, Principal and vice principal have been arrested and detained at the Criminal investigation Department (CID) for operating an illegal/ unregistered tertiary education institution in Sierra Leone.
The three were arrested on Wednesday 30 March 2022.
Background to the Story
In February 2020, the founder Prof. Ezekiel H.S Bangura applied to the Tertiary Education Commission to operate a tertiary education institution in Sierra Leone called Dominion Christian College, his application letter was acknowledged and replied to on 14th February 2020. He was issued an application process outline. Upon receiving the application Process Outline, he later went to the Bank of Sierra Leone, changed the name to Dominion Christian University, without further consultation with the APNIL Manage.
He then went and paid evaluation fee of six million Leones on the 8 November 2021, kept the bank slip to himself and tendered the bank slip in January 2022.
On 15 March 2022 the Commission was invited to the award of their second National Honorary doctorate program degree award ceremony, scheduled to take place on 26th March 2022. The Commission immediately wrote Dominion University not to go ahead with the program and issued a press release to that effect.
Representatives of the Dominion University visited the Tertiary Education Commission and requested for a meeting. The Management and staff members met the delegation, and during the meeting the executive Secretary asked them to stop the proposed award ceremony and cease all tertiary training till further notice.
On the 19th March the Commission learnt from their web site they had held a matriculation ceremony for new students. They went further and wrote a letter for special waiver for them to have their planned award program, which the Commission again turned down.
The cross section of the Commission management staff visited the Dominion Christian University to further inform them not to go ahead with the award ceremony and issued a letter to them that their request for waiver have been turned down and they should cease operations till they regularize their status with the Commission.
The Commission learnt from their website they now also offer undergraduate degrees, post graduate degrees and doctorate degrees, which they are not supposed to offer.
According to the Independent Newspaper, based on the activities of the Dominion Christian University the Commission was left with no choice but to report the matter to CID to take the necessary action based on the MOU they have with the police.
The action by TEC and the police to arrest and detain proprietors operating illegal/unregistered tertiary education intuition in Sierra Leone will go a long way to minimize such practice.
