Professor Abubakar Mohammed, a former Chairman of the National Examination Council (NECO), expressed concerns about government officials hindering the exam body’s operations.
According to Mohammed, a sum of N6 billion in examination fees was withdrawn by these officials without proper accountability.
He raised these issues during NECO’s inaugural award ceremony in Minna, Niger State, attended by educationists and policymakers.
He said, “The government, and especially some officials in the Ministry of Education, are out to sabotage the indigenous examination body. I do not owe anyone any apology for my statement, some government officials don’t want NECO to exist.
“The officials first withdrew the N6bn found in the accounts of NECO. To date, the money has not been returned and nobody even bothered to inform us what they did with the money.”
According to him, the money was examination fees collected from candidates adding that it is still a mystery how we conducted the examinations.
Apart from this, he disclosed that the Federal Government had not released even any subvention to NECO for the running of the organisation.
The former board chairman said there was an agreement on how NECO and WAEC should rotate the conduct of their examinations but the government officials show preference for WAEC, making the regional body to permanently conduct its examinations between May and June.
NECO Registrar, Prof Danlami Wushishi, at the event, announced the introduction of scholarships for candidates who come out tops in the gifted children examination.
He commended the dedication to duty by the staff of the organisation saying, “My staff has not failed me; they work to meet our mandate; they work to meet the timeline we have set for ourselves.”
“There is no female among us, we all work to meet our target. The overall goal of all the staff is to enhance the quality of the service being rendered by the organisation,” he said.
