By Steve Oni, Ilorin

 The University of Ilorin has described the three-day tirade railed on it by a national newspaper last week as “an unwarranted, unsubstantiated beer parlour gossip and an undiluted assault on the hard-earned image of the University and its principal officers”.

 In a press statement signed by its Head of Corporate Affairs, Mr Kunle Akogun, at the weekend, the University picked hole in the newspaper's claim that the write-up was the product of “wide-ranging investigations that started four years ago”, saying that it is the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau, as the article “is a mere recap of the documents that the wailing remnants of the notorious ‘Unilorin 49’ had been circulating against the management of the University for some time now”.     

    
The University said: “The writer only tried to be smart by half by merely paraphrasing the documents handed over to him by those who have made Unilorin-bashing their life-time enterprise”, adding, “It will not be out of place for the management of the newspaper to take a second look at that write-up and compare it with the past releases and petitions against Unilorin by these enemies of progress, with a view to checkmating this editorial fraud!” 
The statement added that “the University, in the pursuit of its quest for academic excellence and the highest standards of morals and discipline, has always strived to enforce strict standards without minding whose ox is gored. If, in the pursuit of these ideals we have stepped on certain toes of some entrenched interests, so be it and there is no apology for that. The University assures all stakeholders that it would continue, at all times, to pursue those ideals that have made Unilorin the University of first choice among Nigerians”.  

      
Advising journalists to be wary of enemies of progress, who are bent on using them to settle personal scores, the University pointed out that “it is this type of de-marketing of the higher educational institutions in Nigeria by selfish, unpatriotic hack writers that has, in the past, driven thousands of hapless Nigerian youths to seek admission in other countries like Ghana and even Benin Republic and Togo, where they are being assailed with substandard education while also being fleeced of scarce resources and the nation's economy being drained of foreign exchange!”