Ogun WAEC Fee Fraud: Police Arrest 20 ZEOs, Two Directors!

By Olumide T. Agunbiade

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 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.