and answers sheets domiciled with the Department of State Security, DSS,
are being sold for One Million Naira each to candidates from Northern
extraction, Pointblanknews.com investigations have revealed.
This is coming few weeks after reports emerged that no fewer than 70
middle cadre and junior cadre officers mainly from the South had resigned
from the service, both from the state commands and the national
headquarters in the last ten months because of unfavorable terms of
employment they alleged had pervaded the service since the appointment of
the present Director General of the agency, Mallam Lawal Musa Daura.
The scandal involves promotion examinations involving senior civil
servants of the Directorate cadre notably Assistant Directors and Deputy
Directors of the Northern extraction in the Federal Civil Service who are
due for promotion or have repeatedly failed promotional examinations.
When such examinations are conducted by the FCSC, the question papers and
answer scripts are domiciled with the DSS for security reasons and safe
keeping, a source familiar with the procedure told Pointblanknews.com
Sources in the DSS hinted Pointblanknews.com that a racket run by some
senior officials of the Secret Police and that of the FCSC connive and
single out Civil Servants from the North, sell answer scripts to
candidates who have written the examinations and allow them swap with
their original answer scripts.
The scandal occurs once FCSC examiners proceeds to Nigerian embassies
across the globe to conduct similar examinations for civil servants of
directorate cadre working in such embassies after conducting the exams in
Nigeria.
Pointblanknews.com learned that after the departure of the examiners
abroad, DSS moves in to appropriate the questions and answers, contact
selected candidates, demanding N1 million each in order to rewrite the
exams with the answers to the questions to ensure that such candidates
pass the examinations.
No less that N2billion is said to have been made by officials of the DSS
since the fraud started.
As a result, Federal Civil Service employees from the North who have
failed several promotion examinations have suddenly passed and promoted,
according to a DSS official who volunteered information to
Pointblanknews.com.
“That is one of the reasons some officers have decided to resign from the
Service because of the ongoing nepotism in the place,” the official said.
“If you pay N1million, your answer script would be swapped using the
already provided answers in their custody. If you cannot provide the said
amount, you will fail and remain at the same level and repeat next time,”
an official of the DSS who is pissed with the scandal anonymously told
Pointblanknews.com
The source added “the FCSC is also in the picture because they co-ordinate
the scheme abroad but feign ignorance and benefit from the process. But it
has been a process used to ensure the perpetuation of a particularly
privileged people in the system.
According to the source, “funny enough, there are candidates who are not
even aware of the scheme, who sit the exam several times and keep failing
and, are thus stagnated, eventually retiring at that level. Only because
they did not know about it so only those whose relations are in high
places and are aware of the scheme pay. And this has been there for years.
“That is the first menu served any new DG and Mamman Daura, the DG, is
fully aware and has benefited otherwise, he would have probed it and if
the anti-corruption mantra of the government is anything to go by and is
not designed to benefit some people, it would have been looked into as
well”, an impeccable source told Pointblanknews.com.
Tony Opuiyo, Spokesperson of the DSS could not be reached for comment when
Pointblanknews.com sought official response to the FCSC exam scandal.
Eze Afrika
