The President of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, the nutter who claimed last year that he could cure AIDS (and threw a UN representative out of the country when they dared to question him), has been awarded a certificate from disgraced doctor Joseph Obi's fake college, RCAM, apparently as part of Obi's strategy to make money by selling dodgy certificates to African doctors.
Not content with conning people in the UK with his lies, dodgy companies, and made-up AIDS treatments, Obi has just announced that he plans to sell "discounted" fake certificates to medics in Africa. Not only that, but he claims the President of Gambia has one... and my God, for once, he's actually telling the truth.
Here's the President receiving the certificate from RCAM's representative, Andreas Steigen, Vice Chancellor of the University of the Gambia:
And here is the glorious certificate itself, signed by Obi (Edit: as a couple of you have pointed out, it looks like this is the 14th issued):
Who is this Andreas Steigan? I quick glance reveals very little, and it's 3am as I write this so I'll leave it until the morning, but I intend to and get in touch with him and ask why he's promoting a fake college in Africa...
Frankly, Obi is ceasing to amuse me. The guy is having a serious impact in one of the world's poorest countries. I can only hope that the authorities in Dublin act on the information I sent them soon (I should get an acknowledgment this week).
http://layscience.net/trackback/77
Obi enters Africa
from Bloggerheads on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 09:04LayScience - Dr. Joseph Obi cons the President of Gambia. Seriously. O.M.G. I'm with LayScience... Obi is ceasing to amuse me....
How many is he expecting to sell? That's a 12 digit registration number!
It's a twelve digit number and we're on number 14.
That's a very good observation... I wonder who the 14 are, if they all really exist? I also wonder how many of the paid for it?
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Great write up. You need to correct your "he's actually telling the truth" link as its got the URL address twice.
Just fixed it, cheers
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A quick background check puts Steigern as a former director of the Centre for the Study of Environment and Resources at the University of Bergen.
Thanks for that.
I'm curious to know how a Professor from Bergen ended up being VC in africa handing out homeopathy certificates to a quack...
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Andreas Steigern is a professor at the department of biology in Bergen and currently the vice-chancellor of the University of the Gambia. He has an excellent reputation, and is no quack's promoter. I imagine he was asked to present this certificate to the president, and agreed without knowing the madness behind it.
Yes, that's certainly the impression I get. I know that the position of Vice Chancellor can be quite a symbolic role at many institutions. I'm still quite curious to know how the politics behind it all work though.
I'm assuming it went something like: Obi sends an impressive looking e-mail that appeals to the President's vanity, the office of the President accepts it (I rather suspect that if I printed an award by LayScience for "contributions to Science" they'd accept", and since Obi doesn't have the means to afford a holiday, someone in the government suggests that Andreas hands it over for ceremonial purposes.
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