By Dennis Agbo

ENUGU-The Enugu state government has vowed to unmask and bring to book the racketeering cabal behind an alleged collection of money from authors and publishers whom they promise to get their books recommended for usage in primary and secondary schools in the state.

The state government has however made it clear that it does not indulge in inducements to recommend books for schools which it does following clearly prescribed steps every three years.

The state commission for Education, Prof. Uche Eze who briefed newsmen in Enugu, on Friday, on the development, said that the state government, the ministry of Education and all the agencies of the ministry have been embarrassed with reports of a purported lawyer, one Anikem, whom he said is the alleged mastermind in the use of the name of education ministry and agencies in duping the unsuspecting authors and publishers.

“For the purposes of clarity, the ministry has a clear and transparent way of recommending books that are used in our primary and post primary schools. When there is a call for book review, clear direction is given and it is always clearly written that whatever is to be paid must be paid into the government IGR account.

“After book submissions, subject experts are pulled together to review the books and there is no book that is reviewed by one expert. A minimum of two experts must go through one book and make their individual recommendation and based on their recommendations the ministry will determine the text books in each subject area that will be used for a particular period of three years. This means that we do not review books every year, we review books every three years,” Eze stated.

Eze further disclosed that the ministry publishes recommended text books and makes them available to stakeholders so that they will be properly guided, adding that the ministry goes further to monitor if the recommended books are the ones actually being used in the schools.

“So when schools are recommended, it’s then left for the end users and the schools to determine which of the books they will use in their own school. We don’t just recommend one text book, three to four or five text books could be recommended, but all of them must have met the requirements. The content of the book must address the content of the curriculum, the books must be clearly written and we have to ensure that the content is correct and that is why we invite experts, those who are really knowledgeable in the subjects to ensure that the books meet the requirements of the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council that regulates books used in Nigeria schools.

“Therefore, for someone to say that for a book to be recommended, that somebody has to pay is what I don’t know. But from the story, the Anikem foundation has no MoU with the ministry of Education and there is no document from the ministry of education authorizing him to sell any book for the ministry and I have related with all agencies in my ministry and they all denied that they don’t have any agreement with Anikem foundation to sell books and I see him as fraudulent because no one gave him any written permission to sell books on behalf of anybody. For such a man to come and bring down the image of the state will not be tolerated and we will take appropriate action to deal with the matter.

“The Education Resource Center said it is not aware of Aniken foundation, the Post Primary School Management Board (PPSMB) denied knowledge of him, but what he is doing is to use the name of government to move about deceiving unsuspecting publishers and the publishers complained that since they paid the money that they have not received any money for their books and that he continues promising. I don’t see the business of a lawyer selling books in schools, we are going to investigate to know the extent he has gone deceiving people. Using the government’s name is quite unacceptable,” Eze promised.