For over one month now, and despite being on the annual recess, the House of Representatives has been investigating job racketeering in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government and abuse of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Some staff of ministries, departments and agencies of government have been extorting unsuspecting and desperate job seekers of millions of naira in exchange for jobs, the House of Representatives has uncovered.
The committee on job racketeering in federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), parastatals, and tertiary institutions and mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information Service (IPPIS), led by Hon. Yusuf Gagdi, has discovered that even some top staff of the Federal Character Commission (FCC), an agency charged with the responsibility of ensuring fairness, equity and transparency and accountability in the sharing of federal vacancies is deep into the crime.
Gagdi said that although the investigation is still ongoing, the ad-hoc committee has so far discovered that there has been gross violations of the Federal Character Commission, FCC Act by top management of the agency through indiscriminate granting of employment waivers to MDAs, lopsided employment in most agencies and outright extortion and sale of job vacancies to desperate and unsuspecting job seekers.
He noted that the shocking revelation from the FCC came to the fore when an erstwhile IPPIS desk officer at the agency, Mr. Haruna Kolo, who was accused of collecting monies from people to offer them jobs confessed that he had collected over N75 million from applicants on the instruction of the FCC chairman, Dr. Farida Dankaka for employment.
Mr. Kolo, who has since gone into hiding told the committee that FCC chairman, Mrs. Faridah Dankaka instructed him to receive the money in his personal Ecobank account and pay to her in cash, which he did at several meetings at her house.
The ex-IPPIS desk officer disclosed that he resigned from FCC on the 2nd of November 2022 to begin work at Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), yet he received salaries from the FCC on two occasions, which he claimed he reported to the FCC Human Resource Officer, who said it would be sorted out.
The Chairman of the committee, Hon. Gagdi disclosed that they have obtained the bank statements of Mr. Kolo and flagged some names that made suspicious transfers to the account and have been summoned.
He said that one Musa Ibrahim also testified before the committee and claimed that he facilitated the payment of money to the account of Abdullahi Ibrahim, an aide to Mamman Ankayi, the FCC Commissioner from Nasarawa State.
He presented evidence of payments to the committee and alleged that Mr. Ibrahim was arrested, but the commissioner facilitated his release.
“Abdullahi Ibrahim was a scam; we got him arrested at a point,” he said.
During her appearance, the FCC Chairman, Dr. Farida Dankaka while reacting to the allegations leveled against her by Kolo, swore with God and Holy Qu’ran that she never collected money from Kolo, insisting that she has never instructed her former subordinate to collect money on her behalf.
“I swear with Almighty God I am with this Qu’ran. Thank God the secretary brought this Qu’ran. If I ever collect one naira from this Kolo, may almighty destroy what I worked for,” she said.
Also, Mr. Mamman Alakai, the commissioner representing Nasarawa state in the FCC, who was equally mentioned denied collecting money to secure employment for job seekers.
The investigation is still underway and more MDAs are expected to appear before it this week and the chairman of the probe panel, Hon. Yusuf Gagdi has vowed to expose all the corruption and infractions associated with employment in the nation’s agencies.
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