Sahara Reporters Charades Against Prof. Bugaje: Settings The Records Straight -By Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua

I read a story entitled “Fraud,Job racketeering scandal rocks Nigeria ‘s Technical Education Board” carried out by Sahara reporters an online media on 14th August ,2025 ,with great shock. Ordinarily,one should not have bothered himself to reply to the tissues of lies, misrepresentation of facts and poor graps of public services rules by Sahara reporters and its co-sponsors, but looking at the weight of allegations and how gullible minds can be negatively feeded,It has become pertinent to set the record straight. Though,one had expected Sahara reporters to carry out a balanced story by contacting the executive secretary of the board, professor Idris Bugaje,who remains accessible to hear from his side. This has never happened. The online media is so desperated to give a dog a bad name in other to hang it. The online media has thrown professional ethics into winds and turned to a willing tool to smear the good image of professor Bugaje and NBTE through fictitious allegations.

To accuse professor Idris Bugaje for fraud and so-called Jobs racketeering is nothing but lies,vendetta and deliberate campaign of calumny to tarnish his reputation which he built over a long period of time. Government organisations carry out recruitment to fill in vacuum created by staff death, retirement and other circumstances.

Those organisations also recruit to meet up with their manpower demand. NBTE, like any other government organisation,is not exceptional. It carried out its recruitment exercise after vacancies have been identified,waiver granted and Head of Civil service of the federation approved. This is to say,there has never been any recruitment conducted without due process and extant laws dully followed. Another lies concocted by the Sahara reporters and their sponsors is: professor Idris Bugaje is bypassing the minister of education in all the recruitment he carried out. There is no iota of truth, as the executive secretary ensures he consults widely with the minister of education for seamless policies implementation and recruitment exercise. Therefore, their allegations is nothing but figment of their imagination.

The sponsors of the publication have spent their considerable energy on “wild goose chase” allegations that professor Idris Bugaje has made staff redundant and opted for few ones to work with them. I think, these people are rushing to blackmail Professor Idris Bugaje and can not even stop to see some of his reforms that transformed the board. For instance, upon assumption of office, professor Idris Bugaje,unbundled the NBTE by opening regional offices across the country. The “raison detre” was to simplify work and assign more responsibilities to staff. If Bugaje wanted to make staff redundant,he would not have opened new offices across the country. On allegation of rapid promotion for the transferred staff,Sahara reporters and its co-travellers have also gotten it wrong. Professor Idris Bugaje,will never approve illegality. He ensured proper placement of staff. You can not expect a staff on level 14 to be demoted to level 13 because he or she has transferred his/ her service to NBTE. That is why,those who have been promoted to directors are eminently qualified.

Professor Idris Bugaje has been transforming NBTE in various aspects of human development. He is poised to achieve sound and qualitative technical and vocational education in line with Mr president renewed Agenda. NBTE under his watch has achieved great success through monitoring and evaluation of vocational technical institutions. It is sad to note,some unscrupulous people are bent to rubbish his hard earned integrity through spurious and blatant lies. No amount of blackmail can distract professor Idris Bugaje from initiating and implementing policies in line with the NBTE mandate.

Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua, Kaduna state.