How N’Delta ministry directors shared N805m, by ICPC witness

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) on Wednesday resumed its prosecution of five former directors of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs before the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Maitama, on charges of alleged fraud involving the sum of about N805m.

The accused persons included a former Director in the ministry and Nasarawa State Peoples Democratic Party candidate in the 2015 governorship election, Mohammed Agabi; ex-Deputy Director in the ministry, Akpore Okeroghene; and a former director and Agabi’s successor, Abibu Ayinla.

Others are ex-Deputy Directors, Idowu Adewale, and Ntu Ngozi.

Led in evidence by the ICPC counsel, Paul Bassi, the first prosecution witness, Kabiru Kaloma, who was a personal assistant to Agabi, gave a graphic detail and narrative of how his companies’ and personal accounts were allegedly used to siphon the ministry’s funds in the name of ‘mop up’

Paloma who was personal assistant to Agabi and later Ayinla, a former Director Finance and Accounts (DFA), informed the court at the resumed hearing of the matter before Justice Husseini Baba, that the mopping up ‘was pure stealing’.

He admitted that his accounts were used for the illegal transfer of the ministry’s fund, and how he suddenly discovered his personal accounts had been frozen by the anti-graft agency sometime in 2014.

The witness who was used as a conduit pipe for illicit transfer of funds said he informed Agabi his former boss of how his accounts were being used by the ministry in 2013 to remit funds. He claimed that Agabi shunned all his calls and never responded to his text messages hence he decided to “spill the beans”

Paloma told the court how Ayinla who became DFA in 2014 instructed that N100 million be left of the balance of 2013 constituency project that was being ‘mopped up’.

Paloma alleged that the DFA, Ayinla ordered a transfer of N60million to his account while the remaining N40million was to be shared amongst staff of the accounts department namely: one Mr Dickson, Kabiru Paloma, James Ihenacho and Daniel Oba, while a portion of the money was shared to staff of the Central Pay Office (CPO) of the ministry.

The witness also alleged that, Ayinla directed the ‘mopping up’ of another balance of N11million so that it won’t reflect in 2014. Instead of mopping up N11 million, Paloma admitted transferring N10 million which was shared among three people including Ayinla.

When asked to elaborate on the ‘mopping up’ scheme, Paloma who noted that “it was stealing”, said that the mopping up was done through his five companies namely: “Kapola Nig Ltd, Sindabab Nig.Ltd,KP Energy solution, Balang Construction Nig Ltd, Nadia Collections Nig. Ltd and my personal account with EcoBank”.

“The DFA insisted that the remaining N1million should be mopped up, making the balance N503million which had been there for two months without anyone knowing”.

Trouble started when Ayinla, having been briefed, directed that N333million should be taken out of the money, of which Ayinla out of greed, was alleged to have demanded that the sum of N233million should be paid to him.

Read also: ICPC declares civil servant wanted over N50m job scam

On checking with the CBN on the remaining N100million, Paloma said he discovered an addition of N192million, and decided to transfer the whole funds into his company accounts without the consent of Ayinla.

The bubble bust when Ayinla requested to pay a contractor N150million and realized there was no money there. “When he asked me, I had taken the money”, he said.

Paloma told the court that it was during his arrest, detention, interrogation and investigation by the ICPC operatives into the misappropriated N805million that other stolen money in the ministry surfaced in which Yusuf Agabi’s name also surfaced.

The accused persons, who were on September 16, 2015 arraigned before the Court, accused of defrauding the Niger Delta ministry to the tune of N605m between July 2013 and October 2014.

Justice Baba adjourned further hearing of the case to November 27 and December 4, 2015.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now