Fraudsters extort Osun school owners of N1m over scholarship awards | EduCeleb
Abdussalam Amoo
19th December 2017
Some people suspected to be fraudsters have on Monday duped school owners in Osun State of sums of money totalling over one million naira.
The fellows had approached the school proprietors inviting them to participate in a scholarship exercise.
An official of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Osogbo zone, said the yet-to-be identified fraudsters organized a ‘fake’ scholarship examination for their pupils.
The alleged scammers had initially conducted preliminary stages of the said examination for primary and secondary pupils at each local government in the zone – Irepodun, Olorunda, Orolu and Osogbo Local Government Areas.
According to a teacher in one of the schools who spoke on the condition of anonymity, forty students at both primary and secondary school levels were required by the organisers from all the participating schools and each student paid N1,500. The teacher added that each student was promised a vest.
In his words, “They approached all the private schools in Osogbo zone for an essay contest, we accepted to participate. They requested for 20 students from both categories of our school and each student must register with N1,500 which they all did. We attended the preliminary stage and they came to inform us that all our students qualified for the final round. They said the final round will hold at GOF International School, Osogbo today (Monday).
“On getting here with a host of other schools, we realized that the programme is a scam. Our school alone paid fifty four thousand naira while several schools paid more. The organizers are no where to be found again and parents and proprietors of schools are clamouring for a refund.”
Officers of the Nigeria Police force were deployed to the purported venue, which is a school while parents, teachers and proprietors were seen agitating for the refund.
The invitation card sighted by the  correspondent simply read the following information:
Future Leader (FL) Awards Essay Competition
Invitation to sit for the final stage
Venue: GOF International School, Onward area, Ogo-Oluwa, Osogbo.
Date : Monday, 18th December, 2017
Time : 10am prompt
When  contacted the Osun State Command Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mrs Odoro Folashade, she promised to get back to our correspondent later but didn’t, as at the time of filing this report.