National Examinations Council (NECO) has come to the public domain over alleged award of N25 billion contracts by its register. MARTIN PAUL reviews the genesis of the crisis.
Intro
National Examinations Council (NECO) was established in April 1999 by the federal government to supplement the conduct of secondary school certificated examination, which the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) had enjoyed the monopoly for years.
This was in response to public outcry against ever-increasing problems associated with the conduct of public examinations by the regional body, WAEC.
NECO, however, derived its full enabling mandate to compete with WAEC in 2002 and since then, has been conducting the school-based Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) in the country.
Today, it could be succinctly deduced that NECO is the only home-grown public examination body for the country.
With the immediate past Registrar and Chief Executive of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as pioneer registrar, NECO enjoyed relative peace until the era of former Registrar, Professor Promise Okpala.
It will be recalled that the sound relationship between the staff and registrar went sour following a threat from the workers to forcefully eject Okpala from office.
Allegations
They alleged that the registrar tenure had expired, which according to them, should not be more than five years.
The Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), chapter of NECO at a press conference addressed by its Caretaker Committee Chairman, Comrade Abdulrasheed Lawal Rabana, faulted the continued stay in office by Okpala.
Babana had said: “The tenure of Prof. Promise Okpala as registrar expired with the National Examination Council on April 9, 2012. No official pronouncement has been made on his re-appointment and he has refused to hand over to the most senior director.”
Before the melee that led to Okpala’s finally bowing out at NECO, his tenure was marred by petitions, to which despondent argued that the appointment would have been given to a northerner.
In like manner, when Professor Charles Uwakwe was appointed, a group, the Citizens Advocacy for Equity and Educational Development, petitioned the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, over Uwakwe’s appointments in the examination umpire.
The group said in a statement that the appointments were characterised by nepotism and ethnicity.
The petition, signed by the group’s coordinator, Cyril Ijegwa and addressed to the education minister, said it noted that the examinations body had of late been dominated by South-easterners.
It argued that since the establishment of NECO, four out of the five registrars appointed, so far, had been from the Southern region, with most of them hailing from the south-east.
The group said the “lopsided” appointment of the NECO Registrar in favour of the south-east had made “favouritism” and “nepotism” to become the order of the day in terms of promotion and transfer of staff members of the body.
“While we do not begrudge the appointment of any individual, it has been brought to our consistent notice that the streak of appointments since the reign of Prof. Promise Okpala was nothing, but a conduit for ethnic perpetuation and ingratiation which continued with the subsequent appointment of Prof. Tommy Joshua.
“The acts of nepotism perpetrated by this duo resulted in sustained massive outcry against their actions, especially, when viewed against the backdrop of the fact that the national headquarters of NECO is instructively sited in the Northern region of the country.
“Getting out of this mess, NECO should be saved from plunging into the same crises again. Our educational agencies should not be seen as platforms for doing private business as Uwakwe is a tribesman, colleague and friend to Prof. Okpala”.
Protests
Protest reared the head again in August 2016, this time against Uwakwe’s appointment, and the union led by Mr Stephen Adebumi and Mr. Ibrahim Ali, petitioned the minister of education over various issues.
They continuously argued that it has been the turn of the north to be the registrar and chief executive officer for the 19-year-old examination body.
While it is expected that the examination body should enjoy peace again, the reverse is now the case.
Report at our disposal showed that NECO is targeting a remittance of N1.2 billion to the federation account by December, while prudent management of scarce resources has been the guiding principle of the Council.
While this is hoped for, Uwakwe and some top directors have been on suspension following a petition of alleged mismanagement of N15 million generated from from examination charges and the registrar said this “is baseless and fallacious, the number of candidates who sat for NECO exams and how much the Council make is in the public domain.
Response
“We have on the spot assessment of what the challenges are, and to set the record straight we are not running independently in terms of our budgeting. We are under strict guidance by the Ministry and National Assembly.
“Every year we provide information as to what we generate and what our expenditure is. We go to defend all these and therefore if somebody says fifty naira is missing, it’s practically impossible and totally fallacious. I am in touch with all my state officers and zonal coordinators regularly and consistently.
“In conducting our exams, we pay apprentice, people in the community to conduct the exams. We have four exams that we conduct. It is professionally and unacceptable for someone to insinuate that there is embezzlement of funds without facts. The books are there, the records are there.
“The Council just returned from the defense of our budget in the National Assembly and there is need for us to increase our remittance to the federation account which we have been working on because prudent management of resources that we have must be our guiding principle.
“We, therefore, call on Nigerians and civil society groups to approach the Council for clarifications, when in doubts”.
On illegal recruitment, he said there has never been illegal recruitment by the council. All that we have done by way of replacement we have followed due process with clearance from both the Ministry of Education, Federal Character Commission and Head of Service. We have documented evidence of weavers and approval.
On the internal crisis in the council the issues are with some union members. We have an open door policy and relate well with unions. But for some strange reasons a few of them have over stepped their bounds making communication directly to the Ministry without consulting with the council. Rather than settling union issues internally they have written all kinds of petitions that can be addressed internally. All those are not necessary. They should not run a parallel government because they belong to a union. The best approach is to work with the council.
On the issue of illegal sale of guest house, the issue started in 2007 long before I came to NECO and it came to my attention when I assumed duty as CEO of NECO and I set up an administrative panel to look into the issue and the officer directly involved is on interdiction, as we speak the matter is before the EFCC.
However, while allegations remains until proofed culpable, A case of award of contract by Uwakwe’s team, amounting to N25 billion, remains unrealistic when the weight of the amount involved is taken into considerations.
An Abuja based Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) called under the aegis of Anti Corruption Crusaders of Nigeria (ACCN) described the allegations as a “desperate attempt to tarnish President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration’s image” but called for a thorough investigation on the alleged N25 billion contract award , it
At a press conference in Abuja, the spokesperson of the Anti Corruption Crusaders, Comrade Christian Omale, stated that the group was in support of the corruption investigation, but demanded that the “investigative panel be very thorough, objective and fair in the discharge of its mandate”.
Omale told journalists that it was strange for a Council under the watchful eyes of the Federal Ministry of Education and members of the National Assembly in terms of budgeting to mismanage such huge sum of money through contract awards if this was not an attempt to rubbish this administration.
“We are convinced that the number of candidates who sat for National Examination Council and how much the Council make is in the public domain.
The reality
How can a Council like NECO award N25 billion contracts without approval from the Federal Executive Council (FEC)? How much is the budget of the Council as approved by the National Assembly?”, Omale queried.
Pertinent questions that seed answers are if the processes, systems and procedures of awarding contracts in NECO are faulty, Uwakwe should not be singled out as being responsible because he never reviewed or introduced anything new, but only presided over the 2017 procurement, while that of 2016 were concluded before his appointment
The council has always keep her books open for public scrutiny by relevant financial supervisory institutions even as the Council’s budget estimates often pass through the National Assembly scrutiny.
