Comrade Dallah, (centre) with other officails of the coalition at the World Press Conference Friday
By Dave Iyima
The Coalition of Civil Society Groups for Justice has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to order an investigation and prosecution into a case of forgery against the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel, Mr. Edet Sunday Akpan.
The Convener of the Coalition, Comrade Ibrahim Kabiru Dallah at a World Press Conference in Abuja Friday, said Mr. Akpan parades questionable academic credentials and falsified his age of birth.
He said Mr. Akpan, a Permanent Secretary who served in the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investments is accused of corruption, forgery and criminal falsification of service with which he has gotten promoted and remain in service beyond his retirement age. Akpan is presently Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel.
According to Dallah, Akpan’s primary and secondary school certificates are said to be missing from his records but it appears to be for an obvious reasons of their non-existence or to hide a falsified date of birth.
Dallah noted that Mr. Akpan was said to have joined the civil service in Akwa-Ibom State where record is said to show that his original date of birth is 1958 and transferred his service to Federal Government in 1999 with the same record of birth date.
“However, in his IPPIS, he entered his date of birth as 1962. This is a deliberate criminal falsification to help him overstay in service,” the Convener claimed.
He pointed out that “for the avoidance of doubt, without certificates to authenticate, Mr. Akpan is said to claim that he started his education at Qua Iboe Science Secondary School (Etinan Institute) in 1965. The first and most serious of the wonders of the world is how someone born in 1962 can start secondary school in 1965.
“The implication is that he went from primary school to junior secondary before he was ever conceived. And assuming without conceding that it was primary education he meant that he started in that 1965, it means that he began his primary school education at the record age of 3 years. That too should have made an entry in the Guinness Book of Records!” he stressed.
Accordingly, Dallah urged President Buhari, as an apostle of anti-corruption to investigate Mr. Akpan and if found culpable, sack and prosecute him to serve as a deterrent to other offenders and would-be offenders.
Edet Sunday Akpan
Before then, he said, Mr Akpan should be suspended and the Independent Corrupt Practices And Other Related Offences Commission, (ICPC), is under an obligation of transparent public service to make its findings public.
Dallah regretted that this sort of corruption should not happen when younger people are looking for spaces to offer their services.
He alleged that Mr. Akpan’s case is even more worrisome as it he alleged shielded by a powerful man within the political system.
“We dare say that a person who is disturbed by their own stench is incapable of participating in a clean activity and environment. How can a Permanent Secretary who is stinking with his own criminal records perform creditably? There should be enough of that pollution of the public space!” Dallah bemoaned.
However, the Convener said the allegations were first made by a group under the aegis of Concerned Public Servants and it is not on record that Mr. Akpan has denied them.
Dallah said two related facts stand out that if Mr. Akpan was born in 1958, he ought to have retired 2 years ago and if he was born in 1962, it was practically impossible that he started Primary (or even in some arguments, Secondary Education) in 1965.
However, Mr. Akpan did not pick calls put to him or reply to a test message by Apex News Exclusive, but denied the allegations in a general statement through a whatsapp platform.
He said: “I have never in my life forged anything. I wasn’t born in 1958 but in 1962. Also I never attended Qua Iboe Science Secondary School (Etinan Institute).
“There is nothing they have not written about me, there is no amount of blackmail that they have not done about me just because I am a Permanent Secretary but they are all lies.
“They claim that I schooled in Etinan Institute and that is not true. I never attended Etinan Institute. I was not born in 1958. I have never forged anything in my life be it certificate or anything,” he noted.
