Abia cancels nursing school examination, probes misconduct allegation

The Abia State Government has ordered the cancellation of the recently concluded Preliminary Test Sessions examination for student nurses in the state.

This is as a result of allegations of wrongdoing levelled against some individuals involved in the conduct of the examination, which led to protests by some affected student nurses.

The state Commissioner for Information and Culture, Okey Kanu, disclosed this while briefing newsmen on the outcome of this week’s State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Alex Otti on Tuesday.

“In order to show transparency in all it’s activities, the state government has ordered the cancellation of the result of the last Nursing exams.
“This was based on the allegations of wrong doing levelled against some individuals. As a responsible government , a committee was set up and the preliminary report of the committee is that the exam be cancelled while investigations continue.”

The commissioner said there would be another examination soon, adding that the committee already set up would continue its investigation into the matter.

He stressed that nobody has been indicted or arrested yet in connection with the matter.
Adding his voice, the Principal Secretary and Chief Strategist to the Governor, Mr. Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, revealed that the committee met with all the necessary stakeholders in the matter and interviewed them.

“The committee met with all the stakeholders; the students who have petitioned , the leadership of the institutions that were involved. This exam was conducted as CBT, Computer Based Test and so the vendors who provided the technology were also interviewed by the committee.

“After reviewing all the information that has come forward from all these parties, it was clear that the examinations could have been conducted better in a manner that would have maintained the integrity that’s expected of any examination” he said.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr Ferdinand Ekeoma, maintained that what the government has done is in tandem with Governor Otti’s campaign promise of sanitising the system, stressing that the government would continue to clear up the mess created by the previous administration.

“What the government has just done is in tandem with the promises made by the Governor on assumption of office. Don’t forget, he declared a state of emergency in the health sector ,the principals of schools of Nursing and all the rest of them were invited through the Commissioner for Health .

“They were spoken to, government made them to understand that it was aware of all the things, the corruption that have been going on there and warned that going forward, such a thing would not be allowed. Don’t forget that the admission proper was not done by this government . Ordinarily, we would not have admitted one hundred and something for a quota of 75 persons. So what we are doing is the sanitization process,” Ekeoma asserted.