NECO Registrar should not be on the basis of ethnicity – Rights Group

The Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET) has condemned recent protest against the appointment of Professor Charles Uwakwe as the new Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO), on grounds that he is a non northerner.
Executive Secretary of the group, Comrade Ikpa Isaac in a statement on Saturday, made available to DAILY POST in Abuja, said it was irresponsible that the protesters were asking for the appointment to be reversed for ethnic considerations because the new Registrar was from the South and that no northerner had ever occupied the position.

He said, “it is even more depressing when the Citizens Advocacy for Equity and Educational Development further explained that the new Registrar should have come from the north because the council’s headquarters is located in the north.”
“As a group committed to equity, educational institutions should be manned by anybody based on competence and merit and not on geographical location or ethnicity”, Ikpa said.
“The demand of the protesters is dangerous coming at a time when there is outcry in some quarters that the appointments under the current government favoured northerners, hence, acceding to the protesters’ demand would leave a bad precedence”, he added.
He said the practice must, therefore, “remain scouting for the best brain in the country who can find to man such a sensitive position.”

According to the group, the new Registrar might have been subjected to a rigorous scrutiny by the Federal Ministry of Education before been appointed, to enable him reposition the examination body so as to make its certificates acceptable all over the world.