FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REINSTATES SUSPENDED NABTEB REGISTRAR, SAYS SUSPENSION NOT IN CONFORMITY WITH DUE PROCESS
Echono added further that, the Board went beyond its powers and in contravention of section 5 and section 6 of National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB). The Ministry also announced dissolution the governing board with immediate effect.
“The purported suspension of the Registrar, Prof. Ifeoma Abanihe, and four (4) other Directors of NABTEB has been nullified as it did not conform with due process especially in the case of the Registrar, because the Board went beyond its powers and in contravention of section 5 and Section 6 of NABTEB Act”
Penpushing also recalled that, the panel which the Ministry faulted had earlier in its report ordered the Registrar to refund N49.7 million she allegedly could not account for, to the coffers of NABTEB.
Speaking on the development, the reinstated Registrar of the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB), in a document made available to Penpushing titled. ’Putting the records straight’ also rejected allegations of corruption against her, but accused the sacked Chairman of the dissolved Governing Council, Leonard Shilgba, of wrongdoing.
The Registrar said the purpose of the “clarification is to disabuse the minds of the general public in order to stop the former chairman from feeding the public with deliberate falsehood and to debunk his claims as an advocate of due process and anti-corruption.”
She explained that, the reason the former Board Chairman resolved to suspend and remove her was because she did not succumb to his plan to loot NABTEB and enrich himself, adding that she refused to accede to several corrupt demands made by the former chairman because she did not want to violate existing rules of the government.
The documents also accuse the former board boss of beginning to harass the registrar with demands for financial assistance from NABTEB more than six months before he was formally inaugurated as Chairman of NABTEB’s governing board in 2017.
Similarly, the document accused Shilgba of pushing for an ‘urgent’ employment of six staff, including one that aspired to be engaged as a Deputy Director without cognate experience and another, a driver without a valid driver’s licence.
“Contrary to his self-acclaimed love for due process, Mr Shilgba did not feel any qualms about flouting several Government regulations” NABTEB said in the document,adding that, “15% of N10,000.00 enrolment fees for NABTEB examinations, translating to N1,500.00 per candidate was to be appropriated for governing board members while 5% was appropriated for staff logistics.”
The document also emphasized that the former chairman was not entitled to a permanent office, as a part-time official, but he insisted on being provided with an office, as well as assistants, in the NABTEB Liaison Office in Abuja.
Penpushing also report from the document that the office was furnished according to Shilgba dictates, thereby depriving the zonal office of the space needed for control of “examination materials”, which is a major activity of the examination process.
The document equally accused the former board chairman of disobeying the Procurement Act by bringing vendors to bid for contract of online service providers without advertisement in Federal Government Tenders Journal and two other national dailies.
It emphasized that the climax of Shilgba’s overzealousness and disregard for due process and rule of law was demonstrated in his desperate and reckless attempt to change the signatories of the NABTEB TSA accounts at the Office of the Accountant General.
“Mr Shilgba actually directed the NABTEB director of administration to send letters to the Office of Accountant General of the Federation to execute the plan to change the signatories in Abuja”, the document said.
Abanihe said, amazingly, before her suspension, she was neither interviewed by the committee nor given the opportunity to defend herself contrary to the rules of fair hearing as entrenched in the 1999 Constitution.
She said the investigative committee which presented its report to the First Governing Board Meeting, on the basis of which the former Chairman suspended her, was not properly constituted as it did not meet the criteria stipulated in the NABTEB Regulations.”
“On the issue of illegal recruitment, the board did not recruit thirty staff, rather only fifteen staff who hail from five geopolitical zones were employed to replace exited staff while noting that approval was obtained from the supervising ministry in July 2017,”Abanihe said.
But the former chairman in reaction posited that a special committee of NABTEB consisting of two presidential appointees, representative of federal ministry of education, representative of WAEC, and representative of PTBTA, representative of the Federal Ministry of Education” found Abanihe guilty.
