A True ‘Work-Chopper’

What Nigerians understand by “Where you work that’s where you eat from”…

It is quite easy to blame those holding positions in Government offices for the terrible situations of the country, as well as accusing them of stealing, manipulating, embezzling and the likes, when in actual sense, a lot of us are just like them. Some of us point accusing fingers, because we are not in that position. In reality, half us would do worse than those we are condemning. Also, in our little way, we are just as fraudulent as the money launderers.

A school teacher was appointed as the school principal more than four years ago in a big school in Abuja after the previous principal left and her position became vacant, and like the popular saying, you do not know a man’s true character until he has been handed money or power. She became a mini-god to her colleagues whom she believes are now her subordinates, as the school proprietress is based in Lagos. She was always yelling at teachers and members of non-teaching staff, throwing insults, and firing whoever offends her-even though the power to terminate staff’s appointment was not given to her-without any feeling of remorse or human sympathy. So much so that most of the staff started to feel like they are working in a toxic environment. She also owns a school that she runs secretly in the same Abuja, and because she knows that the proprietress frowns at her members of staff being school owners elsewhere, she has vehemently denied it. However, a few staffs who know about it attested that she has on several occasions taken some properties from the school to her own school. This is the same woman who reported a former male teacher to the proprietress that he owns and runs a cybercafé after school hours simply because she had some minor issues with him…and he was sacked.

Well, all of these are not her only special qualities.

Two things happened when a new session began last year; first, she secretly started selling textbooks to parents after the proprietress has said that the school will not be selling textbooks, in the name of not wanting parents to get upset that the school would not be supplying their kids textbooks for the academic year. When sending account details for payment, she asked the accountant and front desk officers to send her own account to parents for textbooks purchase (an action that is strictly against the school policy). Then a parent brought in cash worth more than four hundred thousand naira to her office for his child’s fees. Knowing full well that the proprietress of the school has warned against accepting cash from any parent whatsoever, she went on to accept it. Instead of her to call on the school accountant to attend to this parent, she called her newly employed secretary and introduced her to the parent as the school accountant. They stayed in her office and counted the money.

Unknown to this new secretary and the rest of the school management that the money was never paid into the school account.

Of course, the child’s bill kept reading outstanding, but whenever the proprietress visits the school and goes over the files of students owing school fees, her wily ways will come to play. In the school file, the child still owes the first term fees even though the proprietress has ordered that a message be sent to the child’s parent severally, but that message never reached the man, because the cunning principal always manipulated her way around it.

By second term (this year), a new parent brought in two of her kids for registration. According to the woman, their father is based abroad, and therefore, every financial aspect regarding the children should be reported to him. She gave the school his phone number, and when he was contacted, he pleaded that every of their fees and results should be forwarded to his email. Since then, she took it upon herself to be doing the communication. The bill was prepared by the front desk officer and sent to him, including the amount for textbooks and the principal’s account details for payment of the textbooks alone, which all amounted to more than a million naira. Unfortunately, he ended up transferring all the money into the principal’s account. At first it looked like the principal was in a deep mess, because should the proprietress know that money for the school was sent into her account by a parent, she would answer for it. Eventually, she went to the bank alone, withdrew the money, filled a bank teller using the parent’s name, and deposited the money.

Unknown to everyone else again, she removed two hundred thousand naira from the money and pocketed it for herself.

According to school record now, this parent that paid in full still owes two hundred thousand naira, but since it happens that the principal is now the one communicating with the man directly, she has obviously used her wiliness to manipulate their school bill, because how in heavens do you tell a man who has paid in full that he still has an outstanding balance of a whooping sum of two hundred thousand naira?

Then third term came in May.

Usually, this is one of those financially stable parents who should not owe school fees for only two children, especially as it is just seven hundred thousand and some naira compared to the first payment he made, which he did not complain about, but weeks stretched to months, yet the school received not a single payment from him. When the proprietress visited the school again in July, she asked that the man be called and asked to pay his children’s school fees. The principal went behind the proprietress and told who the assignment was given to not to call him, that he would pay, so the man wasn’t called.

However, his children’s fees remained unpaid, which now amounts to over nine hundred thousand naira; the two hundred thousand naira the school principal pocketed inclusive. Anyway, the wind came on 5^th August and the anus of the chicken was exposed when the school held their speech and prize giving day. Initially, their school fees bill was prepared, but the proprietress changed her mind and said they would send it to them through their emails. The principal, knowing that she had done some shady activities, arrived really early that Saturday, inserted her flash drive in the accountant’s computer which contained all the students’ fees, and made some changes before anyone, especially the accountant arrived that day.

She took off the outstanding fees of that parent that brought cash in first term, and also from the new parent whom she was believed to be communicating to via emailing, because the term did come to a close without the school receiving a dime from him for his children’s school fees, which is above nine hundred thousand naira now according to the school record.

Obviously, just like the first parent, this one has also paid, but she failed to remit the money to the school. Remember that when he made the first payment, it was into her account, so technically, he only has the principal’s account details.

Otherwise why would she see the need to sneak into the school and edit the bills already prepared and ready to send to parents? She knew that should the bills get to them with all that outstanding money which they have paid, all hell will be let loose.

But like the popular saying goes, “Everyday for the thief, one day for the owner”. All the smartness and cunningness in her head did not even help her remember to take back her flash after editing the bills, printing and putting them in envelops prepared for the parents that day. During the course of the event, the proprietress ordered the accountant not to give those students who are owing their envelops, which means the teachers would have to check in with the accountant first before distributing. Again, the principal, who has assumed a higher position than was given to her told one of the child’s class teachers in charge of distributing the envelops not to withhold those particular children’s envelops from their parents, because they have paid.

The teacher was confused.

She went back to the accountant angrily, saying that the principal told her otherwise. In order to prove her point, the accountant opened the envelop to show the teacher that indeed, this pupil has outstanding fees, only for her to be shocked that the bill in the envelop is different from what she was certain she prepared and put in the envelop herself. The accountant became restless and livid, already knowing whose handwork it was, because she did see the principal’s flash that she had blindly forgotten in her computer, and she decided that the principal’s game was over.

Stealing small amounts of money from the proprietress without her knowledge, though wrong and sad, was pardonable, but promoting to huge amounts was the limit, and if not stopped, she would run the proprietress down. The accountant hurried back to school, printed out the principal’s edited bill from her flash which was still in her computer, and forwarded them to the proprietress much later in the evening, explaining the situation to her. So mad was the proprietress that she had to summon the principal and vice principal to school on Sunday being 6^th August, and in trying not to drag the accountant into it just yet, she presented the situation in a different light. However, the cunning principal denied it flatly and tried to maneuver her way past it again.

The proprietress allowed them go after confronting the principal in the presence of the vice principal, then she flew back to Lagos, taking the principal’s flash from the accountant’s computer with her. When the members of staff resumed on Monday, the principal was looking all over the place for her flash. Since she had done what she did in a rush, she did not exactly remember leaving it in the accountant’s computer. She became extremely restless, because apparently, all her secrets and shady deals are contained in the file. When she could not find it, she started asking some teachers and colleagues if they saw it, but no one said anything about knowing the whereabouts of her missing flash drive.

On Tuesday, the proprietress sent an indefinite suspension letter to the front desk officer, and told her to type it on her computer and forward to the principal’s email using the school’s email, but she could not carry out the assignment until on Wednesday, because the mini-god had changed the access password to the school email so that she would be the only staff who has access to it, and nobody else. Anyway, the proprietress also sent an order that should the principal enter the school premises, she should not be allowed to go out until they have spoken with her, and she gives them permission to do so. The moment the principal came into the school, the proprietress was alerted. The proprietress then placed a call to the police to come to the school to make an arrest (fortunately, students had vacated, so they did not witness the drama), and instructed the security guards not to let her leave until the arrival of the police.

The happy security guards took this instruction with pleasure, because they too were fed up of the principal’s tenure, and wanted nothing more than to give her a taste of her own medicine. When she attempted to leave, they made sure they treated her like a common criminal, and held her hostage until the police arrived and arrested her.

It was as though the entire school was relieved of a bad poison, as all the staff present could not contain their joy.

 Anyway, when she got to the station, she was made to write a statement, of which she admitted in the statement to receiving their fees and not remitting to the school account. Although she tried to throw in a lie or two in the statement by saying that she borrowed some of it to some teachers and used some to celebrate the teachers on Teacher’s Day, her sins have already caught up with her. She also signed that she would pay back the money to the proprietress in due course, otherwise they would not grant her bail. Her friend was allowed to bail her out afterwards.

The ignorant parents who have no idea how greedy, crafty, cunning, cruel and how much of a thief the school principal has been started to call her to show concern when a formal message was sent to the parents’ WhatsApp group chat informing them about the indefinite suspension of the principal. Of course, no criminal ever confesses to their crimes, and so she tried to change the story to those concerned parents who reached out to her. Only a few who called the school to actually hear their side of the story knew and understood what she did wrong to warrant such treatment.

The friend who bailed her without even knowing the real reason why she was arrested revealed to one of the senior teachers in the school who was a supposed friend to the principal that the principal has always been a secretive woman, as well as a liar, and someone who is extremely cunning and wily. Knowing her well enough, the friend said that the principal has a lot of rich friends who live luxurious lifestyles, and in a bid to meet up with their standards, she has resorted to stealing, because apparently, her husband was not as well-to-do financially as their husbands, and their jobs way higher than hers, even though she receives the highest salary in the entire school, which is well above a hundred and twenty thousand naira.

But for someone who wants to “ball” like her rich friends, that is only a few naira notes to her…and this is the same woman who has repeatedly announced that she will become the Minister of Education in Nigeria someday.