By Frank Meke
When we broke the news that all is not well with Nihotour, just less than a few hours the former Director General threw in the towel on account of his expired tenure, many bystanders thought we were after certain interests.
We reported that Philip Egga Maga would act as a placement pending the appointment of substantive chief executive for the badly run-down government tourism training school and left it at that.
A day later and due to concerned interventions by readers and highly placed industry operators who were worried about the poor state of the school in recent times, we probed further and obtained the nominal roll of the institute which revealed that Philip Maga was allegedly picked to supplant the most senior staff , one Tijani Nasiru Olawale currently, the head of Oshogbo campus of the institute.
The report rattled those who frogged maga to the top ladder from number five to first on their own fancy list, a situation that exposed the massive rot in nihotour administration.
Information inside the Abuja head office of the institute and from its supposedly fourteen zonal offices across the nation, revealed tales of alledged official corruption, certificate racketeering, strange postings, and employment racketeering in the system, evidence of gross managerial decay under the former chief executive who is not a professional educationist.
A few hours ago, a WhatsApp message from Mrs Chika Balogun, a former Director General of Nihotour between 2014 and 2018, requested my intervention to set the records straight concerning the position of Philip Egga Maga
she wrote and explained, ” I don’t know why Sheriff Mohammed would drag my name into an issue which was officially treated and to which he even begged should be treated with leniency. When I was there,Philip Maga was on level 14, and I was petitioned that he does not have the required academic qualifications to occupy that position. We investigated with him ( Sheriff) as Maga’s immediate supervisor, part of the team. It was discovered that Maga was doing his masters degree and has a year to finish but was catapulted to level 14 without the required certification. “
The cerebral former DG continued,” And since what we need here to resolve the issue was evidence based and maga does not have his papers but still in school, we resolved that he should be reverted back to level 12 and when he is through with his programme, he will be moved to level 14. It is this same sheriff who begged for linancy because what he Maga did or whoever approved his level 14 promotion did not follow the right procedure. I believe that Mr. Sheriff was possibly playing to the gallery. Why exactly is he dragging my name into an issue that he knew was procedurally wrong and unacceptable? Please let no one malign my name “
When I called Mrs Balogun for more clarification, she was miffed and warned that she had left Nihotour for good and nobody should call her name after years she left office.
However, there are strong indications that nihotour may under go a special probe to clean up the system, and in particular, to fact check the academic backgrounds of the teaching staff in order to ascertain if their certificates are genuine or procured from unapproved sources.