NAPPS faction accuses rival of embellishment, extortion

The President of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Cross River State branch, Mr. Godwin Okwu, has accused the immediate past EXCO of the state branch of the association of embezzlement.

He expressed displeasure over what he described as poor leadership quality exhibited by the immediate past EXCO led by the other faction.

Okwu stated this on Tuesday while answering questions from journalists shortly after a NAPPS stakeholders’ engagement with the Assembly Committee on Education at the mini auditorium of the Cross River State House of Assembly, Calabar.

He further accused the past leadership of spending nine years in office without presenting an account of their stewardship.

“We had a leadership that spent a whole nine years in office with no statement of account. All we were asking for was accountability and not just to collect levies alone.

“When the time for payment comes, they will come and sit at the edge of the table and begin to ask for levies. Even the court said, ‘Give an account,’ and they are suppressing that aspect of the judgment,” Okwu alleged.

Okwu charged the state Ministry of Education not to allow the immediate past NAPPS EXCO in the state to collect levies from school proprietors on the ministry’s behalf, but rather the ministry should directly collect levies meant for the government during the registration of students for the forthcoming West African Examination Council (WAEC).

Okwu appealed to the lawmakers and the ministry not to allow the ministry’s image to be tarnished just because they wanted to protect certain interests in NAPPS.

“A situation where the association is not being taken care of, yet nobody is concerned about building the association, no program, no project, nothing; all they do is collect money and eat without doing anything,” the factional President further alleged.

Okwu, however, expressed satisfaction with the resolution of the House Committee on Education, asking the Ministry to allow school proprietors to register students for WAEC without necessarily making payments to any association in order to reduce the financial burden on candidates sitting for the examination.

When contacted to react to the accusation of embezzlement and extortion levelled against the past EXCO, in a telephone conversation, the factional NAPPS President, Mr Abraham Osok, who was not present at the meeting, declined to comment on the matter so as not to contradict the committee’s resolution.

Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the CRHA on Education, Martins Achadu, advised the ministry not to allow the NAPPS crisis to hinder students’ registration for the forthcoming WAEC.