Secondary School Result Holder Get Employed in Kogi State as Medical Officer

Drama ensued at the venue of the Kogi State Staff Screening Appeal on Monday 30th January, when a lady, Alalonu Vivian Chinyere Salawu, confessed how one-time Deputy Governor of the State, Dr. Philip Salawu, approved her appointment as Medical Officer on Grade Level 13 Step 6 despite having only a Secondary School Certificate with four credits.

Interesting, the lady is not from Kogi, she hails from Imo State.

The gory case failed to escape the eagle eyes of members of the Screening Appeal Committee, who raised eyebrows over the lady's case.

Immediately the anomaly was discovered, she was referred to the Quality Assurance Team of the Committee for further interrogation. It was before the team that the cat was let out of the bag.

She said: “The former Deputy Governor, Dr Philip Salawu, directed his Personal Assistant to write the application on my behalf and I was asked to sign. Salawu immediately recommended me for employment as Medical Officer, a directive which was immediately carried out by the Permanent Secretary.

"I was taking the salary to the wife of the former Deputy Governor's wife through her Personal Assistant while they gave me only 15,000 naira every month. When they were about to leave government, Salawu quickly directed I be converted to a Clerical Officer and I was posted out of his office to the Office of the Head of Service".

Chinyere claimed to be married to the younger brother of Grace Salawu, wife of the former Deputy Governor.

Addressing newsmen at the Screening Appeal Centre, a member of the Committee and the Director General on Media and Publicity to the Governor, Kingsley Fanwo, said the Screening exercise has been quite revealing.

“We need to applaud the previous committee for doing a great job. The Screening Exercise was aimed at saving the service from imminent collapse and to save the lives of the people. Imagine a secondary school certificate holder employed as Medical Officer. They almost killed this state. For her to come to appeal shows the audacity of fraud.

“These are the people castigating government without telling the world the fraud they have been perpetrating. Governor Yahaya Bello is poised to ensure his reforms in the civil service sails through".

It would be recalled that the State Government decided to give affected workers a window of justice to ventilate their complaints and receive fair hearing.

Cases of certificate forgery, age alteration and unexplained cash inflow into civil servants' accounts have been discovered.