A fresh bout of crisis is set to hit the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) as the tenure of the acting Executive Secretary (ES), Prof. Charles Onocha ends on Friday without the federal government appointing a substantive ES.
Pointblanknews.com investigations reveal that Onocha would be leaving office without any word on the N3.4 billion drawn by his predecessor to buy chairs and desks for primary schools across the country. The money simply developed wings.
Onocha may be leaving office scratching his head on what happened to the N850 million Education Trust Fund (ETF) released to his predecessor in September 2007 to buy school tables and chairs.
In addition, the outgoing acting ES may be leaving office with sealed lips on a July 29, 2011 order by federal high court for the commission to pay N850 million into an interest-yielding account.
Onocha would also be silent on the September 19, 2013 judgement by a federal high court discharging his colleague, Prof. Bridget Sokan, and three other subordinates- Molkat Manasseh Mutfwang, Dr. Andrew Ekpunobi, and Michael Aule in an N850 million fraud case brought against them.
Onocha and Sokan were, on the same day, appointed UBEC deputy Executive Secretaries by the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Onocha served out his first tenure in on November 16. 2009, and was re-appointed for another four-year tenure, which ends on Friday.
Sokan was less fortunate. She was still serving her first tenure when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) charged her and other three officials of the commission for N850 million fraud.
Even though the quartet have been discharged, and EFCC withdrawn an appeal filed without their consent by Wahab Shittu, they have yet to return to work.
Onocha took over in September 2012, when the tenure of the then ES, Dr. Mohammed Modibbo Ahmed ended. He was the deputy Executive Secretary, Technical Services.
According to the UBEC Act 2004, the president appoints an Executive Secretary for the commission- in addition to two deputy Executive Secretaries- DES Technical and DES Services..
In April 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Dr. Lami Amodu UBEC Executive Secretary. This was about a month to Obasanjo’s exit as president.
Barely four months after Amodu’s appointment, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who succeeded Obasanjo, sacked Amodu.
In a tactical move, Dr. Modibbo Ahmed, who at the time was Chief Executive of National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), Kaduna, was “redeployed” to head UBEC.
Modibbo, whose “redeployment” was facilitated by Yar’Adua’s all-powerful minister of agriculture, Dr. Sayyadi Abba Ruma, set about fighting all those who opposed his appointment on the grounds that he wasn’t qualified to head UBEC.
Ruma also ensured that another of his sidekick, Prof. Mahmud Yakoob was “redeployed” to ETF, the funding agency for UBEC.
Modibbo took off by cornering all juicy contracts in UBEC. He handed them to his wife, Aishatu, who used phoney companies to claim the monies without executing the contracts.
The companies Aisha, now a member of the House of Representatives, used were chains of unregistered companies in her Binani Group.
She had use the same unregistered companies to get fat but contracts from NTI when her husband was the Chief Executive. In a particular instance, Aisha pocketed N250 million to supply meat pies and soft drinks to participants in a teachers’ training programme her husband organised as head of NTi.
In UBEC, Modibbo exploited the absence of a governing board to full advantage. Few weeks after assuming office, in September 2007, he collected N850 million from the then Education Trust Fund (ETF) in the name of mobilising a contractor to supply furniture for school children.
On August 22, 2008, Modibbo published full-page adverts in Thisday and Daily Trust newspapers. In the adverts, he admitted receiving funding from ETC and his intention to apply the funds to procuring plastic sitting chairs and tables for school children.
“In the Friday, August 22, 2008, editions of THISDAY and Daily Trust newspapers, Modibbo advertised: UBEC “has received financial support from the Education Tax Fund (ETF) and intends to apply the proceeds for the procurement of high-grade, impact resistant co polymer resin desks and chairs for the basic education sub-sector at the states and FCT level in Nigeria.”
In the Wednesday, November 5, 2008 editions of the same newspapers, the then UBEC boss announced that he had pre-qualified some companies. 17 of these belonged to his wife, Aishatu.
The companies Modibbo pre-qualified, which belonged to his wife, included Binani Nig. Ltd., Ojunwa Enterprises, Binwa Nig. Ltd., Al-Malal Nig. Ltd. Golden Crescent Nig. Ltd., Al-Hazen Enterprises and Infinity Telecoms Ltd.
n a dramatic twist, when the contractor, in whose name the N850 million was released to UBEC went to court to make Modibbo cough out the money, Modibbo denied ever receiving the money.
To heighten the irony, over two years after Modibbo and Yakoob withdrew and shared the N850 million, the later rushed to a federal high court to depose to an affidavit that the money was still in the coffers of ETF.
In the affidavit dated 21st January, 2010, Yakoob told Justice Abdul Kafarati that even though Modibbo requested for the N850 million, the money was nonetheless still with ETF.
On July 29, 2011 Justice Abdu Kafarati ordered ETF (now TETFund) to deposit the N850 million in an interest-yielding account of his court.
Initially, Yakoob pretended to be okay with order.
He ordered TETFund’s lawyers – Uwais and Uwais- to write the Chief Registrar of the court to send the bank details.
In the letter dated February 23, 2012, with reference number WUC/32/FHC/OD/12, Uwais and Uwais lawyers penned: “We write in respect of the Order of Court Coram Justice Abdu Kafarati on the 29th day of July, 2011, ordering the 1st and 2nd defendants to deposit with the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court, to be placed in an interest yielding account, the sum of N850 million.
“We hereby request that the said account be opened and that you furnish us with the account details including, 1. Name of Bank; 2. Account Number, and 3. Sort Code, to enable the Defendants transfer the said amount accordingly.”
The law firm signed off thus,, “We look forward to receiving the required information before the next adjourned date, which is the 19th day of March, 2012.” The letter was signed on behalf of Uwais and Uwais by Obinna Ogbuagu.
Over two years since Justice Kafarati gave the order, and over 20 months after Yakoob asked the court to supply its bank details, TETFund has yet to pay a dime into the account. This has confirmed reports that the N850 million has long taken to flight.
Interestingly, neither Modibbo nor Yakoob was able to clear the air on where exactly the N850 million was lodged before their tenures lapsed.
The responsibility of unravelling how N850 million disappeared into the thin air apparently rests with the acting Executive Secretaries of UBEC and TETFund.
“With Onocha on his way out, we may never get to know what happened to the N850 million meant for Nigerian school children,” an official of the federal ministry of education lamented.
Meanwhile, investigations by Pointblanknews.com showed that the governing board of UBEC, in June 2007, approved a request by the then ES, Dr. Amodu, for ETF to release N1.7 billion to fund the purchase of chairs and tables for school children.
Shortly after Yar’Adua took over, UBEC board, like all other boards at the time, was dissolved.
Therefore, when Modibbo took over in September as UBEC boss, there was no governing board.
Documents sourced by Pointblanknews.com revealed that Modibbo used the approval for N1.7 billion made by the disbanded board twice to source N3.4 billion from ETF.
The key people Modibbo “carried along” in the N3.4 billion “windfall,” Pointblanlnews.com investigations revealed, included Abba Ruma, the immediate past ETF (now TETFUND) boss, Prof. Mahmud Yakoob, and the then minister of state for education, Hajia Aisha Dukku.
Pointblanknews.com gathered that Modibbo, who some consider the longest-serving political appointee in Nigeria, became so rich and powerful that he became a tyrant in and around UBEC.
Family sources told Pointblanknews.com that Prof. Onocha didn’t enjoy any moment of his headship of UBEC no thanks to his predecessor.
“Even though Modibbo left over a year ago, his shadow looms large in UBEC. He has spies everywhere. He was always calling Prof. (Onocha) and most times breathing down his neck.
“And Modibbo always exploited Prof’s easy disposition to life. He would threaten that my uncle was there in acting capacity and that President Jonathan would soon re-appoint him. Not wanting to rock the boat, Prof would often defer to him,” a relation of Onocha volunteered.
A children education consultant told Pointblanknews.com that Onocha’s exit would put to the test federal government’s avowed commitment to tackling basic education.
“For such a crucial agency as UBEC to be without a substantive head for 14 months casts a large shadow of doubt on federal government’s commitment to basic education.
“It is bad enough that this has gone on for 14 months. We shall wait to see if one acting ES will hand over to another acting head. This is such a joke,” the consultant offered.
He recalled that a former Prime minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, was recently in Nigeria and helped raise $250 million to match Nigeria’s counterpart funding of $250 million for child education.
“In 2013, Nigeria, that currently has 10.5 million out-of-school children, is spending tens of billions of dollars fighting Boko Haram. With current trends, Nigeria’s out-of-school children may hit the 15 million mark in 2020. This is frightening,” he warned.
He added, “It would be ludicrous for Nigeria to be begging Western donors to support basic education in Nigeria when the federal government can’t as much appoint a head for UBEC, the commission vested with the mandate of delivering basic education,” he added.
Mr. Brown, at a meeting of Coalition of Interventions to Support Access and Quality of Education in Nigeria which held in September in Abuja, challenged the federal government on how to apply the funds raised for basic education.
“it’s up to the government to make the application,” Brown, a United Nations’ special envoy for global education, tasked President Goodluck Jonathan.