Senator Moro didn’t follow due process in award of job contract that left many killed, witness tells court

An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) witness on Monday told a Federal High Court, Abuja, how Senator Abba Moro failed to follow due process in the award of a job contract that led to the death of several Nigerians in 2014.

The EFCC is prosecuting Moro, a former Minister of Interior, for the 2014 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) job recruitment exercise that claimed the lives of dozens of some job applicants in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt.

The anti-graft agency’s spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, made the details of the court proceedings in the trail of Moro avaliable to newsmen on Monday.

At the court on Monday, the prosecution witness 12 (PW12), Niyi Adebayo, told the trial judge, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba that Moro and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, the fourth defendant, failed to follow due process in the contract award for the 2014 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) job recruitment exercise that claimed the lives of dozens of job applicants.

The witness, an officer of the EFCC, under cross-examination by counsel to Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, S. I. Ameh, revealed that there was a complete lack of due process in the e-recruitment platform contract, which the former minister awarded to Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited.

While identifying the contract documents, tendered as Exhibit AAFD 13, Mr Adebayo said; “the parties for the e-recruitment platform contract were the Ministry of Interior and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited. The latter was engaged by the ministry for the provision of e-recruitment platform with the draft agreement prepared by one Mrs S. Adebola, a legal adviser in the Ministry of Interior upon which Moro and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited progressed with the recruitment exercise of March 17, 2013 that subsequently led to the death of scores of job applicants.”

The contract, according to the witness, was carried out outside the processes authorised by the Public Procurement Act for procurement of services. The e-recruitment platform, he further revealed, registered over 675,000 applications at the cost of N1000 per application and that the monies accrued from the excercise were not remitted to the federal government.

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He said, “Clause 3 of the contract states that the contract is at zero cost to the federal government. The item and the amount relating to the operational cost of N83 million were not captured in the document. Interestingly, information on a sharing ratio of 70:30 between the federal government and the contractor was not captured in the document.”

The witness went further to tell the court that Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited engaged the services of ‘Pay-for-Me’ to provide content for the e-platform and was paid commission. Other institutions such as banks and NIBPS, he said, were also paid commission pursuant to the immigration recruitment.

The EFCC is prosecuting Mr Moro on an 11-count charge of procurement fraud and money laundering. He is charged alongside former permanent secretary in the ministry, Anastasia Daniel-Nwobia; a deputy director in the ministry, F. O Alayebami; Mahmood Ahmadu (at large), and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited.

The defence counsel, meanwhile, made a no-case submission, to which Justice Dimgba granted it 14 days to file the application and 28 days for the prosecution counsel, Yusuf Aliyu, to file a counter response and adjourned the matter until January, 28, 2020.

Moro is among Nigerian senators supporting the controversial social media regulation bill.

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