By Dave Iyima
The Coalition of New Nigeria Transparency and Anti Corruption (CNNTAC) has rised an alarm over massive corruption and high handedness rocking the one-year-old North East Development Commission (NEDC).
The group in a statement signed by its Secretary Tijani Umar and distributed to newsmen in Abuja and Lagos, noted that if the Presidency and the EFCC does not intervene quickly and on time, the Commission shall soon collapse and go under due to unbridled high-level corruption.
According to the group which said they are speaking on behalf of millions of displaced widows ,orphans and refugees scattered all over the Northeast, call on president Buhari to speedily look into the books of the commission so as to halt the frightening profligacy ungoing there right now.
The group who accused the MD of the commission Mr Alkali of displaying a notorious disdain for due process, transparency and the rule of law, further sighted illegal award of over inflated contracts running into billions of naira by the Managing Director of the commission Alhaji Alkali without recourse to the board of the commission as stipulated by law.
The group wondered how close 100 billion naira that accrued to the commission barely one year ago has been squandered frivolously without any concrete impact on the suffering refugees of the North East.
The anti corruption group pointed at an instance few weeks ago where the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs in collaboration with the MD of the commission illegally took about 5 billion naira in the name of “purchasing vehicles for the military “, which is completely out of the scope of the commissions duties which borders only on refugees activities,saying the group was on ground in Maiduguri and obtained evidences of massive inflation of prices of the vehicles.
The group said it is in possession of other documents showing the purchases of choice properties by close staff and associates of the MD in highbrow neighborhoods in Abuja, Kaduna and Maiduguri which can be traced to over- inflated and nonexistent contracts.
The group also raised an alarm that another massive corruption scheme is on the verge of being implemented in the name Housing estate in Maiduguri without the boards knowledge and approval .
He said About N5billion has alleged to have been spent on Covid-19 supplies without approval of the board.
The MD single handedly handled all the Covid supplies. There is massive contract splitting in the commission.
Umar said to us it shows that the chairman , General Tarfa rtd has not shown enough capacity to run the commission as he is said to be very incompetent to control the MD and other board members who are set to draw a line and fight back.
All efforts to get the board members to comment on the allegations have proved abortive as all calls to them have not been answered.
