NECO Board Chair Decries Threats To Life For Dismissing 70 Fake-Certificated Staff
By Usman Muhammad
In desperate attempts to force the Governing Board of National Examinations Council (NECO) to rescind its decision on the recently dismissed staff, 70, involved in the criminal use of fake certificates to gain employments and undeserving promotions in the council, highly placed government officials related to some of the dismissed staff have resorted to threatening the board chairman, Dr. Sadique Abubakar, to either temper justice with mercy or be ready to bear the consequences of his actions.
The Board Chairman confided in Education Monitor that he had received several telephone calls from different categories of leaders, particularly politicians, dishing out all manners of threats, both subtle and violent. They all claimed they were fighting for the rights of their beloved ones that were unjustly dismissed.
While some of the callers simply spoke formally and appealed to the chairman to please temper justice with mercy, some were uncouth and were belligerently dishing out all forms of threats, such as “if you allow our brothers to lose their jobs, you should have yourself, and nobody else, to blame.”
Others threatened to take legal actions, by challenging the Board’s decision in courts of law and reporting the issue to higher authorities, such as the Presidency and the National Assembly.
However, Dr. Sadique warned that no amount of threats can distract the board from doing what it believes is the right thing to do to sanitize the council and to set it on a strong and developmental path, in line with the mandate we were given by both the President and the Minister of Education, Mal. Adamu Adamu.