KADUNA SPEAKER IN CERTIFICATE SCANDAL

By NBF News

•Jumare
When Honourable Ahmed Hassan Jumare was elected Speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly about two years ago, owing to the resignation of the former Speaker on health grounds, most of his colleagues kicked against it. Reason: Everyone, including his colleagues, knew he could not communicate in English language, because of low educational qualification, and wondered why Kaduna, of all places would allow such an 'anomaly' to happen.

But because the powers that be wanted him, the former Makarfi Council chairman, who was first elected as a member of the House in 2003, was forced down the throat of his colleagues through the alleged use of money and other incentives promised the lawmakers, which forced majority of them to allow the 'anomaly' take place.

Barely three months after, the lawmakers became sharply divided into two camps, following the attempt by the aggrieved camp to impeach the Speaker. The Speaker was then accused of 'gross incompetence, arrogance, vulgarity, low educational background, lack of respect for party leaders and elders in the state.' But that move again did not succeed.

What most of the lawmakers did not know, or even if they did, none has ever brought it to the fore, is that their leader could just be parading another 'Toronto' certificate. In the Speaker's INEC Form C.F. 001, a copy of which was obtained by Sunday Sun, he claimed to have attended L.E.A Central Primary School, Makarfi, from 1973 to 1979, Basawa Teachers' College, Zaria, 1979 to 1984, and Kaduna State Polytechnic, Zaria, from 1997 to 1999.

But investigation in Makarfi, Kachia, Zaria and Kaduna revealed that the Speaker, who was initially known as Ahmed Nagogo, actually attended the said L.E.A Central Primary, Makarfi, from 1969 to 1976, having been born on June 1, 1960. After completing his primary school in 1976, he proceeded to Government Secondary School, G.S.S, Kachia, where he was alleged to have been 'sent away' for an undisclosed reason. From there, he was said to have changed his name to Ahmed Hassan Jumare, and allegedly preceded to Basawa Teachers' College, Zaria, from where he claimed to have obtained a Grade Two Teachers' Certificate.

But the certificate, a copy of which was obtained by Sunday Sun, does not appear genuine, as there was no date to indicate when it was issued. Efforts to confirm the authenticity of the certificate from the school was met with a brick wall, with some of the officials claiming that the school has since been converted to a secondary school and as such the information Sunday Sun was seeking could not be provided.

But, in what looked like a statement of result from the said college, bearing the name of the Speaker as 'Hassan Ahmed J.' he was said to have sat for the May/June 1984 Teachers' Grade Two examination, and scored B2 in Class Teaching, B2 in History and B2 in Hausa.

Three years later, precisely in 1987, the same result claimed he had pass in both Arithmetic Processes and English Language. And 13 years later, 2000 to be precise, the same result indicated that he sat for and obtained B1 in both Principles of Education and Physical and Health Education. The result was said to have been issued in 2001. Although Sunday Sun established through the National Teachers Institute, NTI, Kaduna, that Grade Two was phased out in 2006, investigation further revealed that B2, B1 as grades were only introduced recently, as such could not have been part of scores grading as far back as 1984. Curiously, the said statement was said to have been obtained through the state's Ministry of Education in 2001.

'No one has asked me to speak officially on this matter, and so you must protect my identity. Looking at what you are holding as a certificate from Basawa, there is nothing to show that it was obtained from the school, because like you observed, (there is) no date, nothing. That is one. 'Two, look at the statement very well. As at 1984, we had not started using all these B1, B2 of a thing. These are very recent developments. So to that extent, I doubt these papers,' an official in the Education Ministry volunteered.

If the authenticity of the Basawa certificate of the Speaker is in doubt, that of the state polytechnic appears more disturbing. The Speaker's purported Diploma in Public Administration, which bears no official seal, a copy of which was obtained by Sunday Sun, was claimed to have been awarded in 1997, the same year he claimed to have been admitted to undergo the same programme.

Curiously too, a statement of result attached to the certificate actually indicated that he had his last semester in 1997. But the signature of the Head of Department and that of the Director of the School bore respectively November 25 and November 26, 1999 as dates the said statement was issued.

However, the registration number on both the Statement of Result and the Diploma, which reads D/PAM/95/15768, is an indication that the owner of the certificate must have been admitted in 1995 to undergo a Diploma Programme in Public Administration and may have graduated in 1997. It is doubtful if it is the Kaduna State's number three citizen, Ahmed (Nagogo) Hassan Jumare.

On five different occasions, Sunday Sun visited the Zaria Polytechnic but no one was willing to volunteer any information, because of what one of them said was the fear of losing their job. 'Young man, I don't know how you came about all these information. This school is owned by the state. The person you are talking of can cause even the Rector of the institution to be sacked. Abi, you want us to lose our jobs? More so, as civil servants, we are not expected to give you any such information. So I am sorry, do not bother to wait for either the Registrar or the Rector. You cannot have access to any information or document here,' one of the officials said.

All attempts to get the Speaker to state his own side of the story has so far proved abortive, as he was said to be busy with series of political meetings ahead of the April polls.