EFCC declares ex-NSITF boss Olejeme wanted for allegedly diverting N69bn

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has declared as wanted Mrs Ngozi Juliet Olejeme a former Chairman of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).

This is coming close to two years after Ripples Nigeria carried an exclusive report published in May 2015, of how the NSTIF was rocked by allegations of misappropriation of the N12billion from Employees Compensation Scheme (ECS) to the organisation between 2011 and 2014.

The workers’ union had been at daggers drawn with the management and board over the funds which was a subvention from the federal government coffers, among other infractions.

The matter blew open when some members of the in-house union picketed the NSITF headquarters in Abuja to press home their demand for backlog of entitlements being owed the staff.

This prompted Ripples Nigeria to dig deeper, and was able to obtain documents which indicated that fraud and mismanagement may have been at play at the agency under the watch of Olejeme and a former managing director of the agency, Mr. Umar Munir Abubakar.

Ripples Nigeria probe also unearthed a questionable recruitment exercises carried out by a consultant.

The EFCC in a statement stated that Mrs. Olejeme, who was also a one time governorship aspirant in Delta State, is wanted in a case of criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, diversion of public funds and money laundering.

Olejeme vied for the governorship of Delta State under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015 but lost out in the party primaries.

Read also: Exclusive… N12bn Scandal, Job Scam Rock NSITF

 

The former NSITF boss is alleged to have, along with Mr Abubakar, the former Managing Director of NSITF, mismanaged and diverted well over N69billion government funds into their personal accounts through the award of suspicious and bogus contracts to proxy companies.

Olejeme, according to the anti-graft agency, has refused to honour repeated invitations from it.

It said, “The fair-skinned suspect hails from Asaba, Oshimili South LGA of Delta State and speaks English and Igbo languages fluently.

“Her last known address is No 14 J.F. Kennedy Street, Asokoro, Abuja. Anybody having useful information as to her whereabouts should contact the Commission in its Enugu, Kano, Lagos, Gombe, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Maiduguri offices”.

 

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