The Zamfara Government has paid N200 million examination fees owed the National Examinations Council (NECO), to facilitate the release of students’ results, Gov. Bello Matawalle said on Sunday in Gusau.
The examination body had witheld the results of thousands of secondary school students following the non-payment of their registration fees by the state government after promising to do so.
But Matawalle, at a ceremony to welcome new entrants into his party, the PDP, said that the measure was to ensure the release of the results to enable the students to further their education.
“My predecessors made the commitment to pay the fees, but failed to do so. We have decided to pay in the interest of the students,” he said.
He said that government had also paid workers’ salaries “in spite of the fact that we inherited a zero account from the last government and a mass of debts,” he said.
He urged Zamfara residents to continue to be law abiding, and particularly cautioned them against violence that could retard progress.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that 21,000 members of the APC, mostly from the governor’s Maradun Local Government, defected to the ruling PDP at the occasion.
The defectors were jointly received by Matawalle and the state PDP Chairman, Alhaji Ibrahim Mallaha, who both promised to treat the new entrants “like any other member of the party”.