The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Council has reportedly suspended Vice Chancellor Professor Levi Nyagura on allegations of abuse of office after he allegedly unprocedurally awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree to former First Lady Grace Mugabe.
Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Pedzisai Mashiri has been appointed to act as the Vice Chancellor.
Prof Nyagura is being accused of unprocedurally awarding the Doctor of Philosophy degree without the approval of both the University Council and the Senate Committee.
He recently blasted lecturers in the Department of Sociology for challenging the awarding of the contentious doctorate, saying they were “ignorant Messrs and doctors”, with no academic capacity to supervise a PhD student.
On demands by 10 lecturers for the university to revoke Mrs Mugabe’s PhD, Prof Nyagura said PhD students were supervised by the post-graduate centre and not by a teaching department. Nyagura was arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) over the PhD scandal.
He dismissed allegations that the thesis was not in the library until this year, but was deposited in 2014. He said Mrs Mugabe’s thesis was supervised by two professors, who also supervised former Vice President Joice Mujuru.
Supervised by Professor Claude Mararike, Mrs Mugabe graduated with the Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Studies in September 2014.
Through their lawyer, Ms Fiona Iliff from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the lectures said they were shocked to hear that Mrs Mugabe had been awarded a doctorate from their department when they never saw her application, acceptance letter, supervision and even awarding of the degree.
