The Kano Zone of ASUU is set to institute legal action against the Department of State Service (DSS) over an alleged assault of one of its members.

Chairman of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) chapter of the union, Prof. Rabiu Nasiru, made the declaration at a news conference he addressed on Friday in Zaria, Kaduna State.

He alleged that the DSS assaulted the Kano Zonal Coordinator of the union, Prof. Abdulkadir Mohammed while on a union assignment.

He said that the news conference was aimed at calling the attention of concerned authorities and the general public to “unwholesome activities of some personnel of the DSS’’.

Prof. Nasiru said that operatives of the DSS assaulted Prof. Mohammed while he was travelling to Katsina in his personal vehicle along Hadejia Road bye-pass in Kano.

“His fault, if any, was that he drove in the front of a motorcade being escorted by the DSS.

“’The incident occurred on Aug. 18 at about 2p.m. on Hadejia Road bye-pass Kano, and the attack was perpetrated by men of the DSS in a Hilux vehicle belonging to Kano State Government House.

“Besides the physical assault, they also smashed the windscreen and broke the side mirror of Mohammed’s car in a show of force for no just cause,’’ Nasiru said.

ASUU called on the leadership of the DSS to take punitive measures against the officers involved as they portrayed the organisation in bad light.

Nasiru further demanded that the DSS should promptly make the personnel responsible for the shameful act to repair the damaged car of the victim with immediate effect to avoid facing legal action.

He appealed to the National Assembly to reorganise the DSS or review the provisions of Section 315 of the 1999 Constitution that incorporated the 1986 Decree 19, issued by the military.
He said that the review would ensure that the organisation conformed to democratic tenets and the rule of law.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board said it has handed over a 19-year-old candidate in the 2021-2022 Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination to the police for investigation over what it described as “result tampering.”

According to the board’s Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, who briefed journalists at JAMB’s headquarters on Friday in Abuja, the candidate, Chinedu John, had claimed he scored 380 in the examination conducted in June but was surprised to receive 265 from the board after the results were released.

He said following alleged “alteration” of the UTME score, the candidate’s father, John Ifenkpam, approached an Enugu-based lawyer, Ikeazor Akaiwe, who wrote to JAMB for another opportunity for the boy to retake the examination and demanded N1 billion as damages.

According to Oloyede, the lawyer said the N1 billion was to cover for the physical and emotional trauma the boy had been through from being offered “two separate scores.”

The candidate was said to have claimed that his UTME scores from 2019 till 2021 had been “altered” by the board, thereby denying him the opportunity to study his desired course — Medicine.

On Friday, the candidate, his father and lawyer travelled to Abuja from Enugu State following an invitation by the management of the board led by Oloyede.

Initially, the boy was given few minutes to “come clean” in a closed session with his father and lawyers about the results he was parading but insisted that his original score from the examination was 380.

After back and forth, the board tendered evidence to counter the claim by John and his legal representative.

At the Friday meeting, documentary evidence tendered by the board showed that John actually scored 265 and not the 380 he had claimed.

Oloyede accused the candidate of alteration, adding that he will be handed over to the police for investigation and subsequently prosecuted.

He said the original result issued to him would be withdrawn pending investigation.

Oloyede said, “We have 11 of them who tampered with their results. Two of them are already being prosecuted. The remaining ones we are going to withdraw their results and prosecute them. The main purpose is to sanitise the system, including our own staff.

“There was never any communication of 380 with this boy. Because this boy has accused JAMB, we are going to withhold his result until the investigation is concluded. We are going to request that our interactions with him be subjected to the public.”

His lawyer, Ikeazor, appealed to the board to instead give room for further investigation.

“I will not stand against investigation. Let there be investigation but what I will not agree to is to prejudge him,” he said.

Earlier, John had said, “The result I have been receiving is not the result I am entitled to. I wrote the first JAMB in 2019.

“The first time, they sent 328 and later, I saw 278 when I checked it. I printed it. I couldn’t meet up for admission that year. I wanted to study Medicine and Surgery at the University of Ibadan.

“In 2020, the same thing happened. I scored 343, but by the time I went to the portal to print, I saw 306. I used the 306 and it gave me admission in UI. But because I didn’t have Further Mathematics, I had to forfeit it.

“I decided to leave Medicine and Surgery for them in 2021 so I picked Petroleum Engineering. In 2021, JAMB issued me two results. I saw 380 the first time I checked and then the second time, I saw 265.”

But the board’s Public Relations Officer, Fabian Benjamin, claimed that the candidate confessed to the crime.

He said, “The candidate who was paraded for forging the Board’s result has confessed after the Board discovered that he saved his sister’s number on his phone as 55019 and used the phone to send the fake result to his phone.

“When he sends such results, they come as 55019.

“He pleaded for mercy that he had to do that when the result he got was not up to what could give him his desired programme.”

Ekiti State Government has commenced gradual restoration of subventions to tertiary institutions.

The restoration also include salaries of workers which were slashed in June following cash crunch that hit the state then.

On June 4, the Ekiti State Government had suspended the implementation of consequential adjustment of the new minimum wage to some categories of workers in the state, even as it slashed the pay of political office holders by 25 percent. The salary cut lasted for three months.

The state government had also announced a reduction of the monthly running grant to government offices then.

However, the Commissioner for Information, Akin Omole had announced that the slash and other measures done in June were adopted to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the state’s finances, the shortfall in Federation Accounts Allocation Committee and internally-generated revenue and to ensure that government met its obligations.

Omole, in a statement titled, “Resolutions at the August edition of the Economy Review Committee Meeting” said, “Payment of 100 per cent subvention to Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital has been restored.

The commissioner said that the “subvention to Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti; and Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere-Ekiti, had increased from 50 percent to 60 percent and will be reviewed upwards in the month of September 2021.

“The restoration of the Consequential Adjustment of the Minimum Wage for officers on grade levels seven and eight, which was hitherto put on hold due to shortfall in revenue from FAAC, is to be implemented in August; while the arrears will be paid in September, 2021.

“Restoration of consequential adjustment of the minimum wage of officers on Grade Levels nine to 12, which was hitherto put on hold due to shortfall in revenue from FAAC will be implemented in the month of September 2021.”

He, however, said that the “25 per cent reduction in the salary of all political office holders, including permanent secretaries and executive secretaries, is still in place.”