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.
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.