By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has arrested the Vice Principal of Rokel Secondary School, John Ibrahim Gbla, over allegations of examination malpractice. Gbla who also doubles as the head of WAEC exams at the school was arrested alongside Abu Bakar Mansaray, a Mathematics teacher at the school.
A spokesman for the ACC told Politico that the suspects were arrested after a report made by students.
“The arrests came as a result of a complaint we received in the commission by the integrity club in the school,” said Morris Ibrahim Kanteh, a Communications Officer at the Commission.
The two men are at the Criminal Investigation Department whiles the investigation progress, he added.
According to ACC, Mr Gbla and Mr Mansaray allegedly collected Le 50,000 each from a group of students to help them cheat during the exams.
Politico doesn’t have an exact figure of the number of pupils writing the WASSCE exams at the school, but it is thought to be in hundreds.
“According to our investigation, the intention of the payment was to ensure the examination atmosphere is favourable for them,” Kanteh said.
The alarm about this practice came forward when students complained that the teachers either did not help them or in some cases what they helped them with was actually wrong, according to Kanteh.
This year’s public examination has been marred by incidents of malpractices and blatant cheating. Last week, pupils from the Muslim Brotherhood were involved in a protest and running battles with Police over the arrest of their teachers following an examination malpractice.
Rokel Secondary School is situated in the same area with Sierra Leone Muslim Brotherhood.
According to the ACC the integrity club in the school was critical in making the arrest, for this reason they will be setting up more of these clubs in schools across the country.
“There is a process to implement integrity clubs in every school,” Kanteh said.
Even though students were not arrested, the ACC say they are not ruling that out but that all of that will depend on the progress of the investigation.
“Yes corruption is a two way street, but in this situation we want to focus on the teachers because it is much more serious when you have a vice principal of a whole institution conniving with students,” he added.
“And the thing that it is interesting is that the vice principal is the head of examinations in Rokel representing WAEC. And the commission is looking at it that there is a tendency that he has compromised the whole exams,” Conteh added.
The Principal of Rokel Secondary School refused to comment on the issue when contacted by Politico.
“I have nothing to say, this is a legal matter, go to ACC,” Alicious Kamara told Politico.
(c) 2019 Politico Online
