A few days ago, Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria's Minister of Finance was at a press briefing to report on the findings of auditors on different boards in Nigeria. She claimed an examination body in Nigeria was complicit and while trying to give the estimated figures, she made an arithmetic blunder by adding up 6 billion Naira and 16 billion Naira to get a total of 24 billion Naira which had been misappropriated by the examination body. Several shallow Nigerians went off on her, screaming to high heavens about the incompetence of a Minister of Finance who couldn't do simply additions. They, very conveniently, dodged the crux of the matter which led up to the calculations.
According to her, this examination body was given 6 billion Naira by the government and they made a revenue of 16 billion Naira from numerous avenues YET they only remitted 3 million Naira as profit. The more I think about this brazen show of corruption and theft, the angrier I get. Obviously, a few perverse few had shared and squandered over 15 billion Naira which could have been used to develop Nigeria as a whole or even just develop the Educational sector.
As if that was not infuriating enough, I came across the letters above yesterday and I just saw red at the thought that some selfish people just stopped some young adults from having the chance of a lifetime. Edubox, a Nigerian company wrote to the West African Examination Council (WAEC) about wanting to reward the most outstanding students in the May/June examinations and requested for the names of these students from each state in Nigeria in which the examinations were held. It took WAEC a WHOLE MONTH to reply shabbily, demanding for the sum of N1,850,000 as the cost of processing the required data. I have never heard of such preposterous hogwash occurring elsewhere in the world.
If we don't celebrate and encourage outstanding students, who will?
These letters suddenly puts the accusations from the Minister of Finance into perspective. How long shall we continue to be our own enemies in Nigeria?
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