Education Ministry Perm Sec, Others Fingered In N6bn Contract Fraud

A multi-billion naira case of corruption has been uncovered in the National Examinations Council, documents seen by SaharaReporters have shown.

The case involved the award of contracts without following due process by the past management of the examination council.

Those specifically accused of involvement in the corruption saga are the immediate past Acting Registrar of NECO, Abubakar Gana, his Special Assistant, one Ibrahim Peter Alih, as well as Chairman of the Governing Board of council, Dr Abubakar Sadeeq.


Also accused of having a hand in the corruption matter is the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Arc. Sonny T. Echono.(

Echono is precisely accused of providing tacit support for the officials of NECO to perpetrate corruption using his position as a very senior officer in the Ministry charged with the responsibility of supervising NECO.

A source told SaharaReporters that the indefinite suspension of the former Registrar, Prof Charles Uwakwe on May 10, 2018 provided Echono the opportunity to closely interfere in the procurement process of the examination council using Alih as his proxy.

The source said the Permanent Secretary and Sadeeq facilitated the appointment of Alih as the Special Assistant to Gana.

“The staff of NECO are now expressing disappointment with the fact that Echono and the Chairman of the Governing Board have equally imposed Alih on the new Registrar, Prof Godswill Obioma, thereby making it practically impossible for him to operate freely as the Chief Executive Officer of the council.

“Following series of petitions by some staff of NECO on the monumental act of corruption perpetrated by the Acting Registrar, the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit and the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation have launched massive investigations into the corruption in NECO, and Echono is also said to have been making overtures to the Auditor-General of the Federation and the Permanent Secretary (Special Duties) in the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, who are his contemporaries/colleagues in the federal civil service and members of the Service Wide, to suppress the investigations. PICA is under the supervision of the Permanent Secretary (Special Duties).

“In the two years that he held sway as the Acting Registrar, Gana awarded contracts to companies recommended to him by the Permanent Secretary and Chairman of the governing board as well as those close to him in a blatant abuse of due process and all known extant laws and financial regulations.

“For instance, with the active support of the permanent secretary and the NECO Board Chairman, Gana refused to set up a Procurement Planning Committee after the dissolution of the one he inherited,” the source said.

SaharaReporters gathered that the former Acting Registrar also refused to advertise contracts in the Federal Tenders Journal and two national newspapers for competitive biddings to take place, as stipulated by the Public Procurement Act 2007.

Rather, he opted for Direct Procurement Method and Emergency Procurement Method, practices which NECO was not entitled to engage in.

This fact was stated by the Bureau of Public Procurement in its letter to NECO, dated July 30, 2019, with reference number BPP/S.1/SP/19/Vol.I/375.

In the letter, the BPE stated that by virtue of the preconditions listed in Sections 42 and 43 of the Public Procurement Act 2007, NECO has not been exempted from ensuring that the practice of bidding takes place before awarding contracts.

Gana, it was gathered single-handedly, approved contracts for the printing of sensitive, non-sensitive and ancillary materials, running into billions of naira, using the ‘Direct Procurement Method’ without regards to approval thresholds and without getting approvals from the Parastatal Tenders Board, Ministerial Tenders Board or the Federal Executive Council/Bureau of Public Procurement in a flagrant violation of the provisions of Sections 16, 17, 18 and 19 of the Public Procurement Act 2007.

Consequently, these aberrations engaged in by NECO in its awards of contracts to the cost of projects executed by NECO from May 10, 2018, to May 21, 2020, have not met the requisite conditions, failed, in almost all cases, to fall in line with needs of the nation’s economy and did not provide value for money.

Our investigation revealed that in adopting ‘Direct Procurement Method,’ a government institution is supposed to award the entire contract to a single competent contractor, but Gana awarded and paid for contracts for the printing of May/June 2019 sensitive examination materials to six (six) companies, namely: Ramadan Press Ltd, Binani Printing Press, Yaliam Press Limited, Marvellous Mike Printing Press, Mercy Trust Nigeria Ltd and Aitech Investment Limited, while contracts for non-sensitive materials and ancillary materials were awarded to over 72 others. These contracts were awarded and paid for without obtaining the mandatory Due Process Certificate of ‘No Objection’ from the Bureau of Public Procurement and approval from the Federal Executive Council (FEC), thereby flouting the provisions of Section 16 (1), (2), (4), (5), (6) and (7) of the Public Procurement Act 2007.

On June 28, 2019, Gana applied to the BPP via a letter backdated to February 5, 2019, with a curious reference number – FME/FTC/PROC/Vol.II/12 – seeking for special consideration to adopt ‘Direct Procurement Method’ and Due Process Certificate of ‘No Objection’ to award some of the May/June 2019 SSCE contracts which he had already awarded, executed and paid for.

Although the letter was said to be from NECO, the reference number (FME/FTC/PROC/Vol.II/12) is that of the Federal Ministry of Education, which gave credence to the allegation that the Permanent Secretary, who is the chief accounting officer of the ministry, was calling the shots as far as the issue of procurement in NECO was concerned.

Also curious is the discovery that from the NECO 2019 June/July SSCE timetable, it can be seen that the examinations were started on Monday, May 20, 2019, and ended on July 12, 2019. However, the contract letters awarded to Ramadan Press Limited (N308,748,642 million), Marvelous Mike Printing Press (N355,916,654 million), Yaliam Press Limited (N358,624,003 million), Binani Printing Press (N408,277,801 million), Mercy Trust Nigeria Ltd (N277,747,492 million), Kwality Printing and Packaging N54,584,705 million), Baumaster Project Ltd (N40,104,00, Descteck Universal Concept (N44,016,000 million), Jengade International Limited (N20,016,000 million), Jidadu Ventures Limted (15,000,00 and Kwality Printing and Packaging (N5,503,821 million) were all dated before and on May 20, 2019.

Expectedly, the BPP refused to grant the Due Process Certificate of ‘No Objection’ to adopt the Direct Procurement Method. Instead, in order not to be seen as frustrating a national examination, the BPP belatedly and strangely too, advised NECO, on July 30, 2019 (two weeks after completion of the exams), to try Emergency Procurement Method, by the provisions of Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act 2007, although NECO was still not qualified for that.

These shenanigans were repeated in the award of contracts for the printing of sensitive, non-sensitive and ancillary materials for conduct of the 2019 November/December SSCE by NECO.

The contracts were awarded to Ramadan Press Limited (N31,028,916 million), Marvelous Mike Printing Press (N40,255,708 million), Yaliam Press Limited (N39,567,717 million), Descteck Universal Concept (N21,600,000 million), Amsy Global Services Limited (N13,272,00 and Edokson Int’l Investment Limited (N36,059,31, among other companies.

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