WAEC Denies Insulting Finance Minister

The headquarters of West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Accra, Ghana, has denied that its Registrar, Dr. Iyi Uwadiae, made any derogatory remark against the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, over an allegation of corruption levelled against an unnamed examination body.

The minister had, last week, while appearing before the Senate, accused the examination body in the country of drawing about N6 billion from the Federation Account for salaries and capital expenditure and made as much as N16 billion from sales of form, but only declare a surplus of N3 million annually.

Social media had suddenly been abuzz with reports quoting WAEC’s Registrar allegedly asking the minister to sit for its examination in Mathematics over her purported mistake in the calculation of the total money allegedly realised by the unnamed examination.

However, the examination body has distanced itself from the report, claiming that the Registrar does not reside in Nigeria and at no time did he or anyone from the body granted any interview on the subject.

WAEC disclosed this yesterday in a statement issued by the Head of its Public Affairs Unit, Mr. Abiodun Aduloju, describing the publication as worrisome and embarrassing to WAEC. Aduloju said: “The publication is worrisome and embarrassing to WAEC, as the Registrar did not make the statement credited to him and could not have responded as purported, to an allegation in which the name of his organisation was not mentioned.

“The Registrar does not reside in Nigeria and has not granted a press interview or engaged in an informal chat with any Nigerian media representative or authorised anyone to speak on his behalf concerning the Hon. Minister’s statement.” While appealing to the originators of the report to desist from what it described as provocative act, WAEC restated its respect for constituted authorities and the minister in particular.