About
22 senior officers in the Ogun State Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology have so far been arrested and interrogated by the police
over the N200 million fraud uncovered in the payment of the West African
Examination Council, WAEC, fees.
A source close to the police detectives told our correspondent that
those arrested included a director, an assistant director as well as the
Zonal Education Officers, ZEOs, in all the 20 local government areas of
the state.
The source added that the new arrest, which brought the number of
those currently undergoing interrogation to 26, was made late Wednesday
evening. All those arrested, according to the source, have been taken to
the state police headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta. Meanwhile, the
state government has implored members of the public who have useful
information regarding the fraud to furnish the police with such
information.
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mr. Segun
Odubela, who made the appeal yesterday during the ongoing annual
ministerial press briefing to mark the second anniversary of Governor
Ibikunle Amosun’s administration, would enable the state unravel the
mystery behind the N200 million fraud detected in the payment of WAEC
fees for candidates in public secondary schools. Odubela assured that
the state would not shield anybody found culpable in the fraud, no
matter how highly placed in government.
He said: “It would be difficult for me to say anything without having
a proper report from it. We have handed those that were named to the
police, we expect police to investigate and at the end of the day, we
will know who and who are involved. “I can tell you that the present
government will not condone anything that has to do with fraud. We all
know that the present government had spent billions of naira on
education.
The government’s investment in those ministries will be protected and
defended to ensure that the good people of Ogun State get the dividends
of democracy from that spending. “Let us wait; I am sure that very soon
we will see the outcome. If you have any information, you take it to
the police.”
The police had last Tuesday arrested four top officers of the
ministry for allegedly inflating the number of candidates’ enrolment for
WAEC in public secondary school financed by the state government. The
exercise, which was said to have spanned three academic sessions, was
also said to have gulped N200 million.
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