Ondo State Government has suspended three senior officials for their alleged involvement in a recruitment scam tied to the recent employment of teachers in the state.

The affected officials, two directors and a deputy director, were suspended on the directive of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, pending the conclusion of an ongoing investigation into the job racketeering scandal.

Reports indicated that the officials allegedly collected between N500,000 and N700,000 from unsuspecting applicants, depending on their academic qualifications, in exchange for fraudulent appointment letters.

The matter came to public attention after several individuals staged a protest over their exclusion from the ongoing biometric verification exercise for newly recruited teachers. Investigations later revealed that many of the protesters had presented forged appointment documents.

In a statement issued by the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Prince Ebenezer Adeniyan, the government clarified that the aggrieved protesters were not among the over 2,000 teachers legitimately recruited and already deployed across the state.

Adeniyan disclosed that internal investigations confirmed that the three officials at the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, had colluded with external collaborators to issue counterfeit appointment and posting letters to unsuspecting applicants in exchange for money.

“The attention of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa has been drawn to reports of a protest by individuals claiming they were unjustly excluded from the SUBEB recruitment process. “To be clear, those protesters were not genuine employees but victims of fraud who were issued fake letters after paying money to scammers.

They were exposed during biometric verification and informed that their documents were invalid. “Disciplinary action has already been taken against the three SUBEB insiders found to have conspired with outsiders in defrauding applicants,” Adeniyan stated.