After painstaking investigations, it has been finally
established that there are massive and rampant cases of fake
certificates, being paraded by thousands of primary school teachers in
Kogi State payroll through SUBEB.
This was part of the stunning
revelations contained in a comprehensive report submitted to the
immediate past Governor Capt. Idris Wada by the Interim Management
Committee that was inaugurated on 12th May, 2014 to oversee the affairs
of SUBEB, sequel to copious petitions that SUBEB had become a cesspool
of unbridled corruption and poor leadership style of the former chairman
of the board. The report also revealed that there are no fewer than 900
fake Schools and hundreds of fake teachers in all the 21 Local
Government Education Areas of the State.
A copy of the report
exclusively obtained by this independent online journalist last week,
stated that this unwholesome development have been discovered to be
causing grievous damages to the future of school children in the state.
According
to the report, there are rampant cases of fake certificate in most
LGEAs especially NCE Certificates, purportedly obtained from NITT and
college of educations.
It was discovered also that during the
extensive investigations, that a good number of teachers in the state
could not speak good English, even at very senior level. To arrest this
ugly development, the report recommended that teachers should be
promoted based on examination and interview.
In the same vein,
the state government has been urged to urgently set up a high powered
committee to carry out verification of school teachers in the state
because of the menace of fake teachers that have found their ways into
the system.
This report which was never implemented by the then
governor Captain Idris Wada before the end of his tenure, also suggested
that all qualified teachers posted to LGEAs head offices should be
transferred back to the field immediately, to solve the challenges of
gross under staffing being experienced in many school across the state.
It was recommended that failure of such teachers to go back to the class
room should result in compulsory retirement.
In the same vein,
all those teachers without original NCE certificates or letters of
attestation from such schools, should be laid off immediately. The
report also recommend, the need for adequate supervision of schools and
LGEAs by members of SUBEB.
The committee furthered discovered
that several teachers in LGEAs pay rolls were found to be working else
where i.e Civil Defense Corps in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt.
It
was also discovered that most educational secretaries including
sectional heads in LGEAs were allegedly fraudulent, as they issue and
backdated several new employment letters as conduit pipe to defraud the
state running into millions of naira.
The state government was
also advised to flush out all fake teachers that found their ways into
the pay roll through the educational secretaries and their
collaborators.
There were also rampant cases of dead teachers
being replaced by the educational secretaries without consultation with
SUBEB, while some head teachers and sectional heads were discovered to
have inserted fresh names in their pay rolls through which they were
defrauding the state government of millions of naira monthly.
Another
shocking discovery by the committee were cases where letters of
appointment of some teachers had been backdated in other to escape 2010
embargo on state government policy.
Meanwhile, one of the key
components of the change agenda of Alh. Yahaya Bello led administration
is the total war on corruption and other financial crimes which he had
sworn to pursue with all seriousness during his tenure in office.