THE Nigerian students have passed a vote of confidence on the Acting Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO), Mr Abubakar Gana for his outstanding performance in the last one year in office.

NANS’ Senate President Mr Abubakar Gambo gave the endorsement on Monday when he led a students delegation on a commendation and presentation of award visit to the headquarters of NECO in Minna.

Gambo noted that the Student Union Government (SUG) of each institution in Nigeria met in Kogi state in May and critically looked at the registrar’s achievements in the last one year.

He said that Gana had been able to prudently manage the resources of NECO resulting in the elimination of wastages and stealing thus giving rise to the remittance of almost N1 billion into the Federal Government coffers.

He further observed that this prudent management of resources made possible the reduction of registration fees for NECO examination by the immediate past of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu.

” Since Mr Gana took the reins of office on May 10, 2018, we have consistently watched the activities of the council.

” And judging with hindsight presently we can rightly postulate that no matter how good your intentions are as a staff, when there is no conducive environment, there is nothing good you can do.

“We are delighted that Mr Gana has been able to dig into his deep pouch of experience as the oldest management member and director in the council to marry all the conflicting factors which hitherto hampered the progress of NECO.”

The senate president also commended the registrar for restoring the peace alongside confidence and trust which had resulted in the bonding of NECO.

He said the registrar had over times been setting standards of transparency, accountability, incorruptibility and above all cutting-edge efficiency and zero-tolerance for corruption in the council, while urging other government agencies to emulate him.

” As an organisation that is interested in the future of Nigerian students and which sees the prime importance of education as a bedrock for development, we believe the nexus between education and development must be jealousy guarded.

“A scrupulous check through our chronicles and repository of records reveal that this patriotic works has placed NECO as a government agency primus inter pares in our historic ranking by all sacrosanct paramyeters.

“We must therefore applaud the acting registrar for the good job he is doing in midwifing these developments.

“May I express my unfettered joy conveyed on behalf of the millions of Nigerian students whose lives have been positively affected by these patriotic deeds behalf of deeds pass a vote of confidence on the acting registrar,” he said.

Responding,  Acting Registrar, National Examination Council (NECO), Mr Abubakar Gana has said that the establishment of NECO in 1999 was a wake up call to the West African Examinations Council that is now living up to its responsibility.

He said the coming of NECO as an indigenous examination body did not only break the monopoly but has also permanently resolved the problem of delayed admissions by tertiary institutions because of failure to release Senior Secondary School Examination results on time.

Gana recalled that NECO came into being in 1999 because of agitations of the citizenry of the country as a result of issues associated with the then only examination body, WAEC, that was responsible for examining the final year students.

He said that based on recommendations of various committees, NECO was established as an indigenous examination body to serve as local examination agency for the country.

He said, “Since 2000, we have been conducting examinations and one advantage I want you to  understand is that we have given WAEC a wake up call and they are now living to their responsibility.”

Gana, therefore, gave an assurance that the council would do more within the limited time with transparency and accountability.

He added that the innovations emplaced within his one year in office had helped the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) to also live to her responsibilities.

“Also if you recall that there were times in the past that universities and other institutions had to wait for very longer period for them to admit students because of delay in results, but by our coming, we set 90 days after the last paper to release results.

“And as I speak with you today, the last release we had was done 43 days after the last paper.

“I want to assure you that we will do more within the limited time we are on this seat and assure you that all we will do will be transparent,” Gana said.

-NAN

BE

– June 18, 2019 @ 08:05 GMT |