By Deborah Nnamdi
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has acknowledged making mistakes in its earlier statement about the ongoing probe into the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) scheme.
In a press release issued on Thursday, the commission clarified that the error had unintentionally given the impression that irregularities had already been confirmed in the management of the student loan program.
“Unintentionally, the word “NOT” was missing in the second to the last paragraph of our earlier press release in respect of an ongoing investigation regarding the Student Loan Scheme. The missing word created an erroneous impression that the alleged discrepancies or diversion had been established.
“We admit that this is not the case, indeed we accept that the same part of the sentence also contradicted the whole paragraph,” the statement said.
The ICPC clarified that the paragraph in question should have read: “The ICPC confirmed that a clear case of discrepancies has NOT been established in the administration of the student loan scheme and announced that its investigation will now extend to beneficiary institutions and individual student recipients.”
The Commission emphasized that no evidence of diversion or discrepancies has been found at this stage of the investigation.
“The impression of diversion and the issue of discrepancies do not exist at this stage; the investigation would have to move into the receiving institutions and persons before any reasonable deductions could be made,” the statement said.
The ICPC assured the public that its investigation is still ongoing and will extend to beneficiary institutions and individual student recipients.
The Commission urged the public to exercise patience and encouraged persons with valuable information to come forward.
It reiterated that it does not engage in media trials and will not indict persons or organizations without thorough investigations.
The anti-graft agency assured the public of updates as the investigation progresses.
“The earlier error, though already corrected on our Website, is regretted. Our investigations are still ongoing, and there are no indictments yet,” the statement said.
