Nigerian student accuses UK University of racism

Nigerian student accuses UK university of racism

Nigerian student accuses UK University of racism

A Nigerian student has accused the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, United Kingdom of racism.

In the same line of allegations, the Nigerian student identified as Josephine Lawal has demanded a refund of the $20,000 she paid for a failed PhD programme at the said University.

Lawal said that despite spending over five years in the UK, she was frustrated out of the programme.

She noted that the university management later offered to give her a Master’s certificate, which she rejected.

We learnt that the 33-year-old Ondo State indigene obtained a BSc in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Ilorin in 2007.

She thereafter attended the Cardiff Metropolitan University and got a Master’s degree in Business Administration in 2012.

Lawal enrolled for her PhD the same year at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, where she proposed to research on viral marketing.

According to her, the topic was changed to social media marketing and she was scheduled to end in 2015.

Lawal’s problem began when the supervisor assigned to her, Prof. David Walker, allegedly did not attend to her for one year.

The Nigerian student said that after several complaints, she got another supervisor, Dr Sunita Dewitt. Lawal stated,

“My first year was wasted with no supervisor, which was part of the dilemma of a black student in the United Kingdom, because they will not leave a white student without a supervisor for a whole year.

When it became obvious that I would need to renew my visa as the programme dragged to five years, the university did not want to release the Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies that I needed to apply for the visa.

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I was not the only one affected. My colleagues and I had to fight to renew our visas.

After a lot of argument, we showed the management where it was written in the handbook and because of that, they released the CAS for us to apply for our visas.”

Our correspondent learnt that when Lawal submitted her thesis on December 31, 2016, there was no complaint about the research work.

She said because her visa was to run out in 2017, she pleaded for the viva (oral examination) to be arranged on time so that she could return to Nigeria. She added,

“The viva was not conducted until April 2017. In the law of research in the UK, you cannot use a lecturer or someone you have put his name down as a supervisor to be an internal or external supervisor for a viva.

But guess what? My first supervisor, who abandoned my work, was brought for the viva. Then the external examiner was late by one hour.”

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