- Pay your fees again or forget exams, results, mgt tells students
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR
The management of the National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna, is at loggerheads with some students at its Study Centres in Osun State after a cyber cafe operator duped the school. A private cyber cafe operator in Osogbo, simply identified as Olasunkanmi Mutiu, was accused of swindling the students of the NTI centres in Osun to the tune of about N20 million, being funds allegedly meant for their school fees.
The affected students at the Degree, National Certificate Education and Post Graduate Diploma in Education centres of the state, it was gathered, had been visiting Mutiu, the owner of Olasmooth Cafe, Alekuwodo, Osogbo, for the online payment of their school fees and subsequent generation of their payment receipts known as Remita Retrieval Reference (RRR) since 2018.
At the cyber cafe, the students said they would give Mutiu their school fees to pay to the account of NTI and then generate RRR for them. According to the victims, most of whom are elderly and young practising teachers, they trusted Mutiu because he was a friend to the immediate past Osun State Coordinator, Dr Edun Francis.
They also said he was usually seen with some national supervisors whenever they visited their centres. Trouble started for the over 420 affected students after about four years when the management discovered that the RRR they submitted were allegedly cloned by the cyber cafe operator and that the school fees they had reportedly paid were not found in the bank account.
NTI Kaduna was said to have sent a team of investigators to Osun in 2022 to probe the alleged scam. After a meeting between the panel and leadership of the affected students, one of the centre managers, in a message made available to The Point, informed the students that the NTI had taken up the case with the cyber cafe and that it would resolve it. The message reads, “Please tell everybody to avoid being duped. At the end of the interaction today, the panel said NTI had officially taken up the case with the cyber cafe.
They, on behalf of NTI, apologised to all the affected students for the embarrassment; that the issue would not at all affect students’ results and issuance of their certificates. Above is the only information officially from me, the centre manager. Everyone should be careful of being duped again.”
Consequently, the affected students had paid for the second semester examination slated to start in February and had been preparing. But, the students were thrown into confusion after the management reportedly recanted and directed the students to pay their swindled outstanding school fees before they would be allowed to write the examination. The affected students who had graduated were also asked to pay their backlog before their statements of result would be released to them.
A memo addressed to Dr R. O. Bolarinwa, Centre Manager, Osogbo High School, Osogbo, by NTI headquarters in Kaduna, titled, “Recovery of Cloned RRR Payment from Students From Your Centre”, a copy of which was obtained by The Point, reads, “Arising from the report of investigation on cloned RRR carried out on the students from your study centre to NTI management at the headquarters, the Director and Chief Executive has directed that all revenue in respect of fake cloned RRR in your centre must be recovered from the affected students before Thursday 26th January, 2023, before the commencement date of the 2nd semester examination.
“All the current students who are affected will not be allowed to write the exams if they fail to recover the genuine RRR payment of their indebtedness in line with the management’s no fees, no examination policy. All graduated students affected will have no access to their results if they defy the stated date.”
The development caused tension in the centres as students protested the policy and appealed to the management to allow them write the current examination, then look for a way to pay the backlog gradually. They said the cyber cafe operator had been arrested by the Police about three times but nothing concrete came out of it because the NTI management did not intervene.
A former coordinator of the Osogbo Study Centre, who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, explained, “There was a circular that came to the institute at the national level. Prior to this, there had been agitation by the affected students, some of whom had already graduated, while others are still on the programme. There is a certain man who owns a cyber cafe, Mr Olasunkanmi Mutiu. The students were paying their school fees through him to the institute.
They had relied on this man so much for years now. “But, at a point, after about four years, the management suddenly realised that the school fees didn’t get to the school. T h e management sent someone from National to go and inspect the payments, it was at this time that they discovered that the students had fake and cloned payment receipts.
After this, the affected students were chased out of the examination hall during the first semester examination, last year, and they couldn’t sit for the examination. SUSPECT IS FORMER COORDINATOR’S FRIEND – VICTIMS According to the former NTI student, Mutiu was often seen with the former State Coordinator, Edun Francis, and some other officials and it was through them that the students started going to the cafe operator for the transactions.
“The students went to the State Ministry of Education to see the Permanent Secretary for intervention but there was no headway. The management deployed security operatives to the venues of the examination and did not allow the students to write the examination,” he added. “It is not as if the institute or students hired Mutiu but what we met on ground was that this cafe man is a friend to the institute at the state Multi-million Naira scandal rocks National Teachers’ Institute as ‘recommended’ cyber cafe operator swindles over 420 students level.
What we came to realise was that he had been a friend of the immediate past Osun State Coordinator of NTI, Dr Edun Francis. He was transferred in 2022. Because the cafe man is used to the centre, the management asked students to go and meet the man to generate their RRR,” he stated. Expressing disbelief at how Mutiu was able to outsmart the institute for so long, he said,
“The students had generated RRR and had presented them to the management. I don’t know how he came to swindle people overnight. Maybe because he had known the institute at the state level. “We feel that it is not only him that is involved in this. He has been arrested on three or four occasions but they keep on bailing him. The total money involved in this scam is about N20 million.
It baffles us that the management is just discovering this after these years.” It was gathered that the degree students pay N120 per session, the NCE students pay between N25,000 and N35,000, while the PGDE students also pay about what their NCE counterparts pay. While some students were said to have paid the outstanding fees, others were not able to do so.
The Chairman of the committee constituted by the students to look into the matter, Oyetunji Fatai, said, “Somebody did not pay the money on their behalf and it was discovered about two to three years after. We have petitioned the management and also the Police at Zone 11 in Osogbo.
They should allow them write this semester examination. When I was a student there, I was also affected by two semesters. “Whenever we had examination, the external supervisors from Akure or Kaduna would come to the centre. Sometimes, they would come with the cafe man (Mutiu).
So, we thought his cafe was that accredited cafe for this NTI programme in Osun. But the management is denying us and asking us to face the music by ourselves. They don’t even want to listen to our appeals.”
PAY YOUR FEES OR FORGET EXAMS, RESULTS, MGT TELLS STUDENTS
When contacted on the telephone, the Osun State NTI Coordinator, Mumini Adeleye, confirmed that Mutiu allegedly swindled the students, saying that the directive of the national management on “no fees, no examination” had come to stay.
Adeleye said because the cyber cafe operator was seen with his predecessor could not be enough reason for the students to have trusted him with the payment of their school fees. He added that the scam wasn’t peculiar to Osun as students in other centres also fell victim.
