Rose Obianwuna-Esangbedo, a Lagos resident, has accused some officials of the National Teachers Institute (NTI) in Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos State, of demanding N20,000 to process her transcript.

Obianwuna-Esangbedo, who graduated from the institute in 2015, told FIJ that she considered the demand for N20,000 cash by the officials fraudulent, as the stipulated fee on the school’s website is N3,000.

Obianwuna-Esangbedo said that one Mr. Mark, the institute’s official in charge of transcript processing, and Francis Edun, the school’s coordinator in Ikeja, insisted that all graduates must pay the money to speed up delivery and collection of the transcripts.

“They do not care if the graduate has already applied for their transcript on the NTI website,” Obianwuna-Esangbedo said.

“I asked my colleagues how to retrieve my transcript and they told me to go through the NTI website. They said that the website had a Remita payment checkout where I could pay for the transcript. So, I went to the website and generated the Remita payment receipt for N3,000.”

FIJ visited the NTI website and confirmed that the portal indeed has payment options for graduates who want to collect their transcripts.

‘NEXT TIME, YOU WILL ASK QUESTIONS’

After generating the online payment receipt, Obianwuna-Esangbedo said, she proceeded to the NTI office in Ogba. 

“When I got there, they told me to go to a certain Mr. Mark. When I got to Mr. Mark’s office, I told him I wanted to retrieve my transcript and presented the Remita receipt generated on the NTI website to him,” said Obianwuna-Esangbedo.

“Mr. Mark looked at the receipt and then asked, ‘What’s that?’. I told him that it was the Remita receipt I got from the website. The next thing he would say was ‘no, no, we don’t do that here’. 

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“The moment he said this, I was confused. He then went on to say that they only collect cash payment for processing transcripts at the NTI office.

“He said that I should have come to the office to ask questions first. He said people had previously complained about how slow requesting for transcripts online could be and so they decided to collect cash payments to process the transcripts. 

“I asked Mr. Mark what they were going to do in my case since I had already paid for the transcript online and I was not in a hurry. He said that I still had to pay the office N20,000.

“I was surprised at the clear difference in the amount the institution is requesting that people pay online and the cash payment Mr Mark asked for.

“Mr. Mark further said that the courier cost was N7,000, the office would take N4,000, the transcript was N4,000 and the person processing it at the institute would take N2,000. He ended by saying ‘next time, you should ask questions before making such payments’. This was after I asked to know what would happen to the N3,000 online payment I already made.” 

Obianwuna-Esangbedo said Mr. Mark later told her to pay N18,000 if she could not afford the N20,000 he initially requested.

“When he noticed I focused my phone on him, he refused to continue with the conversation for fear of being recorded,” the former student said.

“After spending about two hours at Mr. Mark’s office, I went to see Mr. Francis Edun, the coordinator, and he confirmed to me that they had been receiving cash payments since January.” 

Obianwuna-Esangbedo said Mr. Mark refused to collect the Remita payment slip and documents from her without the N18,000 cash he had demanded.

‘COME TO THE OFFICE, PAY N20,000’

When FIJ called Mr. Mark on Saturday afternoon, he confirmed that applicants would have to come down to the office and pay N20,000 to get their transcripts.

“It involves the processing stage from the headquarters and it takes a minimum of a month. These processes are handled by the headquarters,” Mr. Mark said.

“We don’t handle it here. The headquarters will process the transcript and we will help you package it. The charges received are not only collected here. Remita is part of it, the processing is part of it, both state and headquarters. From state down to headquarters, everything is N20,000.

“If you want us to help you process it, come down to our office, bring your certificate and some documents, and we will make some documentation.”

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‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE N20,000 IS USED FOR’ — NTI COORDINATOR

When FIJ contacted Francis Edun, the NTI coordinator, he denied ever being aware of N20,000 transcript fee.

“I’m not aware of this. Was it at that office? Who asked her to pay N20,000? We don’t print transcripts in our office,” Edun said.

“People are simply meant to apply for their transcripts online or come to the office for documentation so we can send their requests to Kaduna, the headquarters. It is the office in Kaduna that will process the transcripts.

“I tell everyone this. If anyone is asking for N20,000, I don’t know what the N20,000 is used for. Transcript is just N3,000 and the office takes N3,000 or N4,000 for courier. It is stated online. Anything other than that, I don’t know.”

Edun added that some students sometimes “willingly pay so that their requests can be processed faster”. He said he had constantly discouraged such practices.

“I’ve called Mr. Mark, and if the money is with him, he will return it. Some of the students usually try to get their transcripts faster and through the back door. It is not always easy. I think that’s what happened. Transcript processing normally takes between two and three months. I have always told them not to let applicants go through the back door,” Edun said in a follow-up phone conversation.