The immediate past principal of the Warri School of Nursing, Delta State, Mr. Timothy Onorikpori, has described the allegations of harassing female students, sexual escapade and financial embezzlement leveled against him by students, staff and the state Director of Nursing Services, as frivolous and unfounded.
According to him, they were meant to divert the attention of well-meaning Nigerians, particularly Deltans from the corruption, unprofessionalism and disaster that their actions would cause unsuspecting patients who may visit the hospitals where they would be posted to in future.
Onorikpori while reacting to a recent publication on the affairs in his former school, cautioned against giving undue attention to what he called frivolous and baseless accusations.
According to him, such allegations would have been dismissed if they were to have been made in a developed country like the United States or the United Kingdom.
The accusers, he said, were taking advantage of the gullibility of some Deltans and blocking of conduit pipes as fault lines to wage war against him, adding that the war has now taken a media dimension.
He stated that some people considered his handling of the developments that have now come to stay in the institution high handed, during his tenure as principal but said he owed such people no apologies.
Hear him: “I was appointed principal later part of 2020, School of Nursing, Warri and when I got to School of Nursing Warri, what I saw on ground does not befits an academic institution.
“A situation where question papers for an exam are being prepared and typed outside. That one will give room to examination leakages. They have machines that can produce 1000 questions in less than 30 minutes but they were not using it.
“The machine, they said it got bad, photocopiers are not working but when I came, I resuscitated all those things. I have to call someone from Lagos who put those things in order but little did I know that some teachers especially the Exam Committee Chairman were making money from it, they used it against me.
“Teachers, more than 50 per cent of them don’t come to work by 8′ O’clock. If they manage to come by 8:00am or 9:00am, by one hour, they have gone back home.
“Students will not come to lectures. A class of more than 90, if you go to class to teach, you only see a little above 20. The other ones are in the hostels doing nothing. I will go to the hostels when I observed it with the hostel matron with some other female teachers because the hostel is accommodating male and female students. I will go there and chase them back to their classes.
“Students believe that they pay money to pass exams in School of Nursing Warri. When I came I observed it and I stopped it. You must sit and pass your exams but some quarters from higher authority, don’t believe in it.
“So, they looked at me that I am unapproachable. Of course that is the name they gave to me. That you cannot approach me for those kind of things.
“My hands are very clean, they looked at me and saw that they cannot penetrate me. I cannot collect bribe from anybody or student. If you go to Warri and ask students that how many of them have paid me money for exams and how many have come to pacify me with money, nobody will come out”, he stated.