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| Gana |
I fought corruption to a stand still
in NECO – Gana
By Uji Abdullahi Iliyasu
Abuja
The former acting registrar of
National Examinations Council (NECO), Abubakar Gana, has said that his fight
against corruption at the examination body was unprecedented and urged the
online media which had accused him of corruption to retract the story within 48
hours or face legal action.
A statement he personally signed,
and made available to Blueprint Sunday, said infractions at the Council were
discovered before his appointment as acting registrar of NECO.
“My attention has been drawn to a
malicious report on SaharaReporters of September 25, 2020, in which the online
platform alleged that I siphoned N368, 875 million generated during the
June/July 2018 registration of SSCE while I was Acting Registrar of the
National Examinations Council (NECO).
“Ordinarily, I would not have
bothered to dignify the half-truths and fabrications contained in the
publication with a response, but for the purpose of setting the records straight,”
Gana said.
He said to clear the malicious
reportage, he was appointed as Acting
Registrar of NECO on May 10, 2018, while the corruption he was accused of
happened on December 18, 2017, at least, five months before his appointment.
“It must, however, be put on record
that the infractions were uncovered by the Council in 2017 under the watchful
eyes of former registrar, Professor Charles Uwakwe, but nothing was done to
bring the perpetrators to book.
“When I took over the affairs of the
Council in 2018, the misappropriation was officially reported to me, a
development that led to the setting up of both Management and Board Committees
for investigation.
“Upon our investigations, two
officials of the Council were indicted and thereby recommended for dismissal.
“Not satisfied with the outcome of
the investigation, the officials petitioned the Senate Committee on Ethics and
Privileges in the Eight Assembly, which also found them culpable of
misappropriation but however pleaded for leniency, a request that was rejected
by the Board.”
How could I have stolen money before
my appointment as registrar? Gana asked.
He maintained that his
administration fought corruption to a standstill by ensuring that monies
generated by the council went straight to the Treasury Single Account of the
federal government.
“Under my administration as Acting
Registrar of NECO, the Council carried out major reforms and recorded
significant strides.
“Between 2010 and 2017, NECO
generated N900 million but in two years,
we returned over N2 billion, generated as proceeds from the conduct of
examination, to the federation account with outstanding states indebtedness to
the Council for 2018 and 2019 growing up to N1,045,047,140.00 billion.”
The former acting registrar further
said the council also abolished the use of scratch cards to ensure that monies
generated went directly to the treasury single account and also worked to
ensure the reduction of examination registration fee from N11,350 to 9,850.
“My administration generated N600 million
per annum from checking of result, from an initial N30 million. For the first
time, the Council audited itself and dismissed over 100 staff with fake
certificates.”
Gana stressed that the only sin he committed
was to carry out a presidential directive by dismissing corrupt staff who had
now made me a target of their campaign of calumny.
“Also, for the first time, the
council purchased 20 Toyota Hilux vehicles from its Internally Generated
Revenue (IGR) to aid its logistic challenges.
“It is noteworthy that in my
administration, NECO also carried out extensive reforms to improve the
integrity of its examination by purchasing 8,000 biometric verification
machines, in attempt to eliminate the issue of identity theft.
“From these, and many more achievements
recorded during my two-year stint in office, the barrage of allegations
targeted at me by the online media and its ilk, is a case of corruption
fighting back.
Gana
registered his disappointment that the media outfit had relegated its
duty of balanced and unbiased reportage of informing members of the public and
resorted to cheap blackmail and distortion of facts, and therefore, directed the management of the
said media to retract the publication
cited above and tender an unreserved apology to him in not less than two
national dailies, within 48 hours, otherwise he
would seek redress in the court of justice.