NUJ, rights group tackle Wada over alleged N700m fraud

THE Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Kogi State council has called on the state governor, Captain Idris Wada to prosecute perpetrators of the N700 million West African Examinations Council (WAEC) fees fraud.

   Chairman of the union, Ali Atabo, at a press briefing yesterday, said the decision to stop the payment has thrown innocent students and their parents into hardship.

   Though the union leader commended the state government for paying WAEC fees for indigenous students in the state for years, however, he queried the decision, saying that the fraud must be investigated and those behind it punished to serve as deterrent to others.

   He stressed that it is not enough to say that people have committed a fraud or that fraud has been discovered but the government should go further to expose those behind the corruption.

   The NUJ chairman described as un-acceptable the alarming rate of looting of the state’s treasury.

   He threatened that if decisive action is not taken against some of the officials at the state ministry of education who were involved in the scam, the union may take the protest to the court.

   Also, the Executive Secretary of Centre for Human Right and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR) a human rights group based in Lokoja, Mr. Idris Miliki Abdul, condemned the action of Governor Wada by refusing to pay WAEC fees and yet remain silent on perpetrators of the fraud.

   “The government has no free education programme, the payment of the fee, which he inherited from the past government in the state would have encouraged many families to enroll their wards in schools.

   “The governor should reduce the number of his aides who are loitering around with no job. The money saved would be used to offset the WAEC fees.”