Group wants NECO registrar replaced

​A group, Concerned Niger Youth, has appealed to the federal

government to review the trend of having southerners heading the

National Examination Council (NECO).

The group said in an interview with Daily Trust in Minna that since its

establishment, NECO had been headed by southerners except on one

occasion when Prof. Abdulrashid Gabav, a northerner was given the

opportunity.

Speaking through their leader, Mohammed Kutugi, the group said the

recent appointment of Prof Charles Uwakwe, who they alleged is from

the same institution like the former registrar, Prof Promise Okpala,

was unacceptable.

“Okpala introduced ethnic agenda in NECO not only through lopsided

appointments that favoured people of his ethnic stock but also gave

his tribal people who he met here preferential treatment. During

Okpala’s tenure NECO was like an organization owned by the Ibos and

there is the tendency that Uwakwe will replicate the same attitude

here,” Kutigi said.

He said his group was aware that workers of Ibo extraction were

already boasting that Okpala’s loyalists would soon be back in control

following the appointment of Uwakwe.

“We are therefore appealing to Mr President and the minister of

education to, in justice and fairness, swap the appointees and take

Prof Uwakwe to another agency and bring either Prof Bashar Usman

or Prof Abba Haladu to NECO to sustain the cohesion and unity in the

council”, the group urged.