Fake lecturer exposes universities’ admission racket

The ugly tale Sanni Osaghe Mattew, a 35-year-old NCE holder reels out to the police in Lagos now would be a pointer to the extent of decay and fraud that has taken over the university admissions system in Nigeria. The man is surely the scam don with abilities to pull his deals through without borders or discriminations on who the victim and accomplices are. N.B Visit www.campusflava.com for updates and information related to other schools.   He traverses universities, institutions and exam bodies, families, teachers and the echelon of the academia to get his job done. In almost all the deals, he came out clean. His acolytes cut across the security, academic, JAMB, WAEC, parents and others. He plays straight in the language of a master con man. You drop the pay, he gets the job done. He knows his way round with the false identity he brandishes as a senior lecturer. And he had lived that way until that fateful day when his cup overflowed. Sanni allegedly forged an ID to convince victims and accomplices that he was clean and by so doing gets their assistance and patronage in securing admission for his clients who are not even qualified. The professors who have upper hand in the administration of the school after collecting an agreed sum of money would see to it that applicants who are not qualified would suddenly become eligible students. He was arrested when one of his clients, Emma, who had parted with hundreds of thousands of naira, felt that he was delaying in delivering and decided to trace the 'lecturer' to his home at No. 31 Okongwe Street, Egbe, Lagos only to discover that he lives in a room with a 12 by 10 mattress.. Alarmed, he decided to report the matter to the Festac Police station. From the station, they called him to collect money for another job. Still dressed in his suit, he drove in his newly acquired Mercedes Benz into the waiting hands of the police. Knowing that the game was up, he quickly confessed that he is not a lecturer and has not seen the four walls of the university. He claimed he was a staffer of Cornerstone Secondary School where he taught Mathematics and was paid N20,000 a month. He resigned when the school forced him to teach a subject that he was not familiar with. "I was forced to teach Infotech which I knew little or nothing about. So, when I flopped, they queried me and out of annoyance, I decided to resign. With his wealth of knowledge, he started tutorials that were shut down when it was banned in schools. I got the idea that since I was good in Mathematics I could fit in as a lecturer. I quickly arranged and forged documents to back my claim and promoted myself to the post of a Lecturer 2. I applied at LASPOTECH and was still waiting for a reply. His first client was Emma who needed admission into postgraduate studies. As a rule, University of Lagos offers candidates postgraduate admission after passing a qualifying entrance exam. Sanni offered to assist him with the admission and to also ensure that he would pass the test. "Emma bought the form, submitted it and gave me the copy as instructed. He gave me N60,000 as fee. I had to help him and forge a WAEC result we used for the application. He also introduced me to other people who were interested in the same admission. On the day of the exam, I had already made some enquiries and confronted one Professor Ade Adeyinka of the Postgraduate School who was one of the supervisors of the test. I introduced myself as a lecturer and with my ID hanging on my neck he greeted me like a colleague. I called him aside and told him my mission and that I had some students who needed help during the test and that they were offering good money. I gave him N120,000 and the examination and phone numbers of the candidates.. He smuggled out the answer sheet and shaded it correctly and called the owners to watch out for their result, which was due on July 18, 2003. This effort convinced Emma who later connected Sanni to other desperate Nigerians who needed admission into UNILAG but did not beat the cut-off point. When the business became too lucrative, Sanni decided to spread his tentacles to other areas. He forged all kinds of stamps and documents to further convince his client that he was real. He assisted those that did not apply for UNILAG as their first and second choice At a stage, he infiltrated JAMB. During the last JAMB examination, Sanni claimed that he visited one of the centres at Amuwo Odofin where he met one of the coordinators from Abuja (names withheld). He took his phone number with the promise to get back to him soonest. "I visited JAMB office at Buhari, Abuja, where I discussed possibilities of helping me to upgrade scores. We agreed and I left for Lagos where I assembled money from four persons and paid in N140,000 through Cashfast. "True to his words, he upgraded their scores. One of my clients, known as Sonia Edet who had scored 207 had her scores upgraded to 229 to beat the cutoff mark of the school she applied for." In spite of the recession hitting the economy, Sanni was busy smiling to the bank as the number of clients multiplied. He started visiting universities all over the country with his Identity card as proof of his genuine personality. "Recently, I had cause to travel to Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma to assist my client get clearance and proceed for NYSC because he failed one course, when Sanni was not able to get across to the dean in charge of NYSC, he got to the office of the registrar with the aid of the PRO (names withheld). He as usual hit success and his client was shortlisted after paying N50,000. Sanni, the admissions deal don did not spare policemen as some of them desperate to secure admission for their children in the University of Lagos parted with huge sums of money. On a day Sanni's neighbour was arrested by the police, he was enlisted to assist the family to secure his bail. Knowing the power of being a lecturer, he got to the Ikotun Police station where he demanded to see the officer in charge of the matter. Casually he introduced himself as a lecturer in UNILAG. The police readily listened to him and released his neighbour. Through that link, he got into a contract with some of the officers to do them a favour in return. This favour is consistent with his art – admission racket. Through this contract, he allegedly collected not less than N225,000 from these desperate fathers. A 90-year-old man was not spared as he paid through the nose to secure admission for his grandchild. Pleading for mercy, Sanni, who forged documents to back up his position as a senior lecturer, said that it was greed that drove him into the trade. I have learnt my lesson. It was the devil and greed to make it fast that dragged me into this act. I am an expert in mathematics, try me even with further mathematics and you will be surprised how good I am. I actually graduated from Technical College of Education, Asaba with in uppers in Mathematics. I lost the documents to armed robbers and decided to use the photocopy to forge a new one. Saturday Sun sought to know why the police were yet to arrest the accomplices in the universities, the police Public Relations Officer confirmed the story but promised that investigation was on to ascertain if the people he mentioned got themselves involved in such scam and bring them to book.                                      By Chioma Okezie-Okeh