NECO registrar Uwakwe’s many troubles

Professor Charles Uwakwe, Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO) was recently suspended from office over allegations bothering on abuse of office. Uwakwe was suspended alongside the deputy directors of finance and that of procurement through a letter from the parent ministry, Federal Ministry of Education. The minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, confirmed the […]

Professor Charles Uwakwe, Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO) was recently suspended from office over allegations bothering on abuse of office. Uwakwe was suspended alongside the deputy directors of finance and that of procurement through a letter from the parent ministry, Federal Ministry of Education.

The minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, confirmed the suspension of the trio to newsmen via telephone in Abuja shortly after the action was taken. According to him, the suspension would enable the ministry to investigate alleged financial mismanagement and corruption leveled against the officials.

“Prof. Uwakwe and two other directors have been suspended indefinitely, pending the outcome of the investigation. It (their suspension) will last as long as the investigation lasts.

“If they finish their investigation (in) one month, if they clear him, he will be recalled. But if they don’t clear him, probably some penalty will be applied,” the minister was quoted as saying.

 The minister did not shed light on the specific wrong doings which eventually earned the officials indefinite suspension; the council’s information unit was also silent on the entire saga.

 However, a source at the council said the allegations leading to the suspension of the officials were contained in a petition letter to the ministry by the council’s Non-Academic Staff Union. In the said petition, the union alleged that the registrar engaged in financial misappropriation, irregular recruitment and failure to adhere to procurement procedures as well as carrying out illegal recruitment.

 Barely two weeks after the incident, an interest group, Vanguard for Justice and Good Governance, in Minna, faulted the ministry for not suspending a top official in the Human Resource Department of the council along with those asked step aside to allow official inquiry, especially as illegal recruitment was one of the allegations against the registrar. 

The group, in a protest letter titled ‘An Attempt to Manipulate Justice in NECO, signed by the national president, Malam Salihu Ahmed, alleged that one of the principal actors who was queried along those suspended and recommended for investigation was conspicuously and curiously exempted.

 The group claimed that the official coordinated the recruitment exercise as was evident by his signature on the appointment letters.

Daily Trust recalls that Uwakwe had resumed to a rough start at the council in 2016 as his appointment did not go down well with some people. The ink had barely dried on his appointment letter as registrar than some persons decided to protest against his emergence as NECO registrar.

A group under the aegis of Citizens Advocacy for Equity and Educational Development had also demanded that his appointment be withdrawn in preference for an indigene of the state or a person of Northern extraction.

They had premised their opposition to the emergence of Uwakwe on the fact that since the inception of NECO only one northerner has held the position; four southerners had piloted its affairs.

Uwakwe did survived the protest, but he was to inherit what many referred to as bobby traps left behind by his predecessors in office, prominent of which was an aggrieved workforce.  Daily Trust learnt that complaints of stagnated promotions, lack of equity and fairness as well as other forms of ill-treatment of staff had welcomed the new registrar.  

Most of the complaints and other anomalies were said to date back to the period of a former registrar who “runs NECO as an extension of his personal property ignoring decency, due process and accountability. He removed most experienced staff from their positions and replaced them with people from his geo-political zone, in a clear display of nepotism,” a union official claimed. 

He said at the heart of the crisis was the mass transfer of over 200 workers most whom were deputy directors from the headquarters in Minna, to the zonal offices. In the process, promotion of the affected persons stagnated and many aggrieved officials at the time were said to have made their grievances public.

 The official explained that the former registrar was said to have been slow in taking a decision on the lingering problem thereby triggering a deluge of petitions from some concerned staff. The recent petition on the alleged abuse of office by Uwakwe was said to be just one among many others.