Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Dr Hafi­zo­ol Ali Mo­hammed, one of the com­mis­sion­ers ap­point­ed to sit on the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt, has ad­mit­ted he ob­tained his doc­tor­ate from a bo­gus uni­ver­si­ty. Mo­hammed has a doc­tor of sci­ence de­gree (DSc) in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions from At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty (AIU)–an in­sti­tu­tion de­scribed by var­i­ous Web sites as a diplo­ma mill.

The com­mis­sion­er, who is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to Trinidad this week for the sixth sit­ting of the en­quiry, told the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day that he re­ceived his DSc from the un­ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty be­cause of his age and the flex­i­bil­i­ty it of­fered. The uni­ver­si­ty's Web site states clear­ly that the on­line learn­ing pro­grammes of­fered at AIU are unique, "non-tra­di­tion­al" and not ac­cred­it­ed by the US State De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The uni­ver­si­ty, which is based in Hawaii, rec­om­mends stu­dents should con­sid­er the im­por­tance of na­tion­al ac­cred­i­ta­tion for the re­quired field and pro­fes­sion they wish to pur­sue be­fore en­rolling. A source said an ex­am­i­na­tion of Mo­hammed's doc­tor­al the­sis, which is en­ti­tled Law and Pol­i­tics in Is­lam, re­vealed the the­sis has no ci­ta­tions or end notes.

"It is not the nor­mal struc­ture of doc­tor­al de­gree. The the­sis is not of schol­ar­ly na­ture at all. It is just in­for­ma­tion, typed. "No rep­utable uni­ver­si­ty will award a doc­tor­al de­gree for such work," the source com­ment­ed. The Sun­day Guardian learned that a top of­fi­cial who is close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the Gov­ern­ment raised con­cerns over Mo­hammed's DSc two months ago, fear­ing the em­bar­rass­ing con­se­quences if it was dis­cov­ered.

Mo­hammed's cre­den­tials

Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed's cur­ricu­lum vi­tae, his ear­li­er aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions in­clude a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion and psy­chol­o­gy from Co­lum­bia Col­lege, and a mas­ter's in hu­man re­source man­age­ment from Cen­tral Michi­gan Uni­ver­si­ty. Mo­hammed, who is the CEO of Peosys In­ter­na­tion­al, a man­age­ment con­sult­ing busi­ness, says in his CV that he was placed on the dean's list at Co­lum­bia Col­lege for main­tain­ing a GPA of 4.00.

His CV does not state which Co­lum­bia Col­lege he at­tend­ed. There are sev­er­al Co­lum­bia Col­leges in the Unit­ed States.

Al­so list­ed is his ex­pe­ri­ence in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Among the qual­i­fi­ca­tions list­ed by Mo­hammed, a for­mer army of­fi­cer, is a mas­ter of sci­ence in mil­i­tary sci­ence from the US Army Staff and Com­mand Col­lege, Leav­en­worth, Kansas. Mo­hammed al­so said he holds a mas­ter's de­gree in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty stud­ies from Amer­i­can Mil­i­tary Uni­ver­si­ty in 2011 as dis­tin­guished grad­u­ate.

As ref­er­ees, Mo­hammed list­ed sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an and Trans­port Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma. Dook­er­an could not be reached for com­ment, as a woman who an­swered his tele­phone said he was out of the coun­try on busi­ness. Shar­ma, re­spond­ing via text mes­sage yes­ter­day, said he was "not aware" that he was used as a ref­er­ence on Mo­hammed's CV.

On the ba­sis of his ex­pe­ri­ence, the Sun­day Guardian learned, Mo­hammed has ex­pressed a keen in­ter­est in as­sist­ing with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in T&T. In a con­grat­u­la­to­ry note he sent to Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Jack Warn­er in Ju­ly on his new ap­point­ment, he wrote: "I sit on the en­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup. I wear four hats: a for­eign­er, an in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert, a com­bat vet­er­an and a Mus­lim."

Ex­tend­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to Warn­er, Mo­hammed added, "Our next en­quiry ses­sion is sched­uled for the last week in Au­gust and will last for two weeks. How­ev­er, I am pre­pared to be on the next flight to meet with you re­gard­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of T&T and any oth­er mat­ters as may be deemed ap­pro­pri­ate."

It is un­cer­tain whether Warn­er met with Mo­hammed, as tele­phone calls and text mes­sages sent to the min­is­ter by the Sun­day Guardian went unan­swered.

'They are not ac­cred­it­ed'

The US De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion's Web Site says the US Sec­re­tary of Ed­u­ca­tion recog­nis­es cer­tain re­gion­al and na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion­al ac­cred­it­ing agen­cies. These are of­fi­cial­ly re­gard­ed as "re­li­able au­thor­i­ties con­cern­ing the qual­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion or train­ing of­fered by the in­sti­tu­tions of high­er ed­u­ca­tion or high­er ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes they ac­cred­it."

The AIU falls un­der the purview of the West­ern As­so­ci­a­tion of Schools and Col­leges, Ac­cred­it­ing Com­mis­sion for Se­nior Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties. Con­tact­ed on Fri­day, the West­ern As­so­ci­a­tion's uni­ver­si­ty co-or­di­na­tor Mar­cy Ram­sey con­firmed to the Sun­day Guardian that AIU was not among the rec­om­mend­ed uni­ver­si­ties on the as­so­ci­a­tion's list­ing.

Asked if the AIU was an ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty, Ram­sey replied: "No, they are not ac­cred­it­ed." More­over, on­line checks showed AIU is among un­ac­cred­it­ed in­sti­tu­tions list­ed on a num­ber of Web sites that warn stu­dents against reg­is­ter­ing there.

The Coun­cil for High­er Ed­u­ca­tion has frowned up­on de­gree mills like AIU, warn­ing:

"Stu­dents may be look­ing for short­cuts to ed­u­ca­tion cre­den­tials as they seek em­ploy­ment. Some stu­dents are mis­led by what is of­fered by de­gree mills, but oth­ers know­ing­ly pay a sig­nif­i­cant fee in or­der to claim (false­ly) that they have com­plet­ed a le­git­i­mate course of study lead­ing to re­li­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Un­scrupu­lous in­di­vid­u­als re­spond, ex­ploit­ing the cur­rent de­mand for high­er ed­u­ca­tion cre­den­tials in many coun­tries."

The coun­cil added that the In­ter­net gives in­di­vid­u­als an in­stant plat­form from which to launch de­gree mills, which stu­dents of­ten can­not read­i­ly dis­tin­guish from the on­line learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties of­fered by le­git­i­mate in­sti­tu­tions.

Mo­hammed: I knew uni­ver­si­ty was not ac­cred­it­ed

So why did Mo­hammed boost his CV with an un­ac­cred­it­ed DSc? Not even he can ex­plain, ex­cept to say that he in­tends to read for an­oth­er de­gree. Asked why he opt­ed to ac­quire a doc­tor­ate from an un­ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty de­scribed as a diplo­ma mill, Mo­hammed, speak­ing from his home in the US, replied: "I did it be­cause I can do it on­line. It al­lows me the flex­i­bil­i­ty to do so be­cause I do a lot of in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el. I am not able to do it any dif­fer­ent­ly."

Told that his DSc is not recog­nised by the ac­cred­i­ta­tion bod­ies gov­ern­ing the US, Mo­hammed, who re­ceived the un­ac­cred­it­ed de­gree in 2009, said, "I have a cer­tifi­cate is­sued by the Sec­re­tary of State. The AIU is one of the uni­ver­si­ties that is quite unique. I did a fair amount of home­work. "At least it is recog­nised by the US State De­part­ment. The cor­rect word to use is that it is recog­nised."

The uni­ver­si­ty's Web site em­pha­sis­es that it is not ac­cred­it­ed by any agency recog­nised by the US De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion. Asked to scan and send a copy of his DSc diplo­ma to show it was recog­nised by the State De­part­ment, Mo­hammed said, "I have a prob­lem with my com­put­er. It is framed."

He ad­mit­ted he did not do any back­ground checks on the uni­ver­si­ty, but said, "There are oth­er peo­ple I know who grad­u­at­ed from the school. "I did re­alise the school was not ful­ly ac­cred­it­ed. "I clear­ly have in­ten­tions to fur­ther my stud­ies even more in the fu­ture. I was think­ing to do an­oth­er MSc in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and con­flict res­o­lu­tion."

He de­fend­ed his choice of the de­gree mill, say­ing: "Frankly, the aca­d­e­mics is not much dif­fer­ent from an ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty," adding, "Keep in mind I have oth­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions. "Al­so, I am 60. So it was a de­ci­sion to fast-track, giv­en my age."

Asked if he in­tends to re­peat his DSc, this time at an ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty, Mo­hammed said, "Yes, at some point in time I will.

"The fact that it is not ac­cred­it­ed does not mean the acad­e­mia is not good. My pri­ma­ry fo­cus is to com­plete the de­gree on­line. I am not con­cerned whether the uni­ver­si­ty is un­ac­cred­it­ed or not. There are many great in­sti­tu­tions in the world that are not ac­cred­it­ed, but they of­fer out­stand­ing ed­u­ca­tion.

"It was an in­ter­im means to get me where I was go­ing. I looked at the flex­i­bil­i­ty and what was be­ing of­fered. I was look­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Phoenix but I could not go to Ari­zona. I de­cid­ed to make the num­ber two choice for the time be­ing. "I am not 25 or 45. It is my in­tent to do it over."

Con­tra­dict­ing his ear­li­er state­ment that he was not con­cerned about whether or not the uni­ver­si­ty was ac­cred­it­ed, he added, "If I was to do it over, of course I will do it from an ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty.

From the uni­ver­si­ty's Web site:

"AIU has cho­sen pri­vate ac­cred­i­ta­tion through the Ac­cred­it­ing Com­mis­sion In­ter­na­tion­al (ACI) which it ob­tained in 1999, the ACI is not reg­u­lat­ed or ap­proved by the US De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion. "AT­LANTIC IN­TER­NA­TION­AL UNI­VER­SI­TY IS NOT AC­CRED­IT­ED BY AN AC­CRED­IT­ING AGENCY REC­OG­NIZED BY THE UNIT­ED STATES SEC­RE­TARY OF ED­U­CA­TION."

(em­pha­sis theirs) www.aiu.edu

From Mo­hammed's CV

�2 No­vem­ber 2006-April 2011: Mid­dle East Desk of­fi­cer/se­nior in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty an­a­lyst.

�2 De­cem­ber 2004-2005: con­sul­tant to the US Un­der Sec­re­tary of De­fence.

�2 Feb­ru­ary 2003-2004: di­rec­tor, con­cepts and in­te­gra­tion di­vi­sion, army per­son­nel trans­for­ma­tion di­rec­torate of the US Army.

As­sis­tant pro­fes­sor, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, Ju­ly 1998-June 2000. Among func­tions: in­struct­ing cadets to be­come the na­tion's lead­ers. How are com­mis­sion­ers cho­sen? The com­mis­sion­ers of an en­quiry are cho­sen by Cab­i­net. Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion the Pres­i­dent must act in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Cab­i­net in nam­ing the com­mis­sion­ers.

The coup en­quiry

Mem­bers of the com­mis­sion were ap­point­ed in 2010 by act­ing Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith. The com­mis­sion is head­ed by chair­man Sir David Sim­mons. The oth­er mem­bers are vice chair­man Sir Richard Chel­tenham and for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors Dr East­lyn Mc Ken­zie and Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att. The Sun­day Guardian learned dai­ly fees for com­mis­sion mem­bers range from ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$2,500-$5,000.