Minister Akpabio says most NDDC Contracts are awarded to Nigerian Lawmakers

Icmsinc Reports
July 20, 2020

The House of Representative of the Nigerian National Assembly has been holding hearings designed to probe the activities of NDDC. Conference room 231 at the New Building of the House of Representative has become a venue of heated dialogue and intense dramatic moments watched my millions of Nigerians on television. The hearing was supposed to be a fact finding hearing regarding allegations and counter allegations of corruption and misappropriation of budgeted NDDC funds. However the whole process of the investigation which was supposed to last for two days was extended to four days and has assumed an adversarial atmosphere.

During the Committee Hearings and Minister Akpabio’s presentation to the committee, he attempted to absolve himself of the numerous allegations of corruption leveled against him by strategically implicating members of the legislature. In making his presentation, it became clearly obvious that the Chairman of the hearing committee and other legislators’ were deliberately interjecting into his presentation in order to stop him from talking. Nevertheless, Akpabio insisted on being heard and stated in the hearing that NNDC records shows that most of the contracts of NNDC were given out to National Assembly members.

Earlier Akpabio had challenged the approach in the hearing as unfair, noting that some people were given one and a half hours to talk while he (Minister Akpabio) was told he had only ten minutes.

Earlier also during the hearing and the interview of Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei, the conditions of overcrowding and heat in the room became unbearable and caused him to suddenly slump and for a moment he was unresponsive and commotion ensued in the hearing room. Professor Pondei was later removed and taken to the hospital after the fainting episode.

. See the full Akpabio Committee Interview: Heated Dialogue As Akpabio Alleges Lawmakers Benefit From NDDC Projects



See Professor Pondei suddenly slump and become unresponsive for a moment as he was being interviewed.

Giving and taking monetary inducements for free government services in Nigeria

ICMS, Inc Reports
By Tom Okure, Ph.D.
Updated August 4, 2017

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Many Nigerian government agencies in compliance with the directives of the current government administration’s policy to combat corruption in the public service, are issuing press releases and puting up posters warning the public to stop giving monetary inducements to government officials for services they are entitled to receive free of charge. 

Poster in Nigerian Consulate in New York City

Monetary inducement is used in this narrative to mean the act of giving someone (a public employee) money intended to persuade or influence the individual to do something or act in a certain manner.

My cursory research and observation in Nigeria suggests that members of the public, despite government warnings, continue sometimes voluntarily, to give out monetary inducements to government officials daily for the performance of their public duties. A visitor to Nigerian public institutions these days may notice posters in Nigerian airports, Consulates, some major government agencies clearly display posters and press releases forbidding monetary inducement to government officials. Even so, a careful observation of activities between agency clients and employees may reveal the exchange of cash gifts to obtain services or gratuity freely given by agency clients for services. Anyone including myself who has resided in Western Europe and the United States where government employees perform their responsibilities diligently without asking for inducements from agency clients, will find such actions disturbing when transacting business in many developing countries. I was curious while visiting Nigeria recently, to determine the underlying reasons behind this peculiar cultural habit in Nigeria and other African countries.

Nigerian Immigration press release informing 

the public to shun inducement for recruitment

into the service

Why is monetary inducement to government employees happening and continuing to persist? I decided to interview a cross spectrum of Nigerians on this phenomenon. Some of the responses I heard to my questions was that monetary inducements, gratuity, bribes etc. is part of the culture. Nigerians like giving and receiving gifts, sometimes involuntarily depending on the circumstances. Having been embedded in the Nigerian psyche for decades, it is alleged that monetary inducement is nothing more than gift giving which over the decades has become a cultural trait (habit) among Nigerians that is difficult to break. 

A government official in Abuja indicated that living in the federal capital is very expensive and stated that monthly salaries (remunerations) are so small in both public and private agencies and this fact forces employees to supplement their income by demanding monetary inducements from agency clients. 

Another respondent noted that wages of employees in Nigeria have remained stagnant for several years. High inflation in the economy has effectively reduced their purchasing power and the present value of wages significantly to a point that it is very difficult for public employees to support a decent livelihood with their salaries. Another respondent to my questions indicated that apart from very low wages, many employers including government institutions regularly owe their employees back wages for many months. Consequently, many employees have to borrow monies from family members to support themselves until they are paid. Under such circumstances, government employees engage in inappropriate behavior such as seeking monetary inducements from agency clients to provide services that the public is supposed to be given freely by agency staff. Every aspect of an agency’s operation becomes fair game and a means of making money by the employee responsible for an activity that has public value. For example, an employee required to hand out a necessary agency form for certification may refuse to provide the form to the public unless some monetary inducement is provided. Action on an application for a passport, employment, or admission to a university etc., can be purposely delayed by an agency/institutional staff or collusion of staff members until the staff are placated with a stipulated monetary inducement (or bribe) by the applicant.

The Federal Government of Nigeria recently announced the re-opening of the registration portal for its young entrepreneur’s empowerment program called YouWin. It became necessary to warn prospective participants in the program to disregard other websites offering alternative links for registration and demand money to facilitate the process or invite applicants to a meeting anywhere. 

For the avoidance of doubt, Kemi Adeosun‏, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance alerted the public to the appalling activity of fraudsters in government agencies. In a televised video announcement to the public, she noted that the Federal Ministry of Finance and other government agencies do not collect money for application forms or anything to provide required program services to the public. All programs of government, unless specifically stated in policy are free.

Nigerian Police collecting bribes at checkpoints

Monetary inducements are observable at police checkpoints all over the country, where taxi and bus drives are regularly compelled by police and soldiers manning the checkpoints to pay some money to them before they are allowed to cross the checkpoint. One can encounter many of such checkpoints within a stretch of highway deliberately put up by various law enforcement agencies like immigration, highway patrol, and customs for the sole purpose of extracting monetary inducements from the public.  

So what can be done to break this bad cultural habit? My personal observation is that the campaign against corruption, indiscipline and forceful or voluntary monetary inducement must take on a multifaceted approach in order to be effective. Corruption has been embedded in the Nigerian psyche for decades and a change in an embedded cultural habit will take a very long time to achieve. 

Satire of an arrested police officer for collecting bribe

Government public awareness campaigns of the ill effects of this bad habits as is currently being done can help to an extent. However long term structural changes in the economic, educational and social fabric of the Nigerian society are needed to achieve a long term result. Educationally, this will entail including within the educational system, a curriculum that incorporates educating the younger generation in schools against bribe taking. An economic agenda is also needed geared at uplifting and increasing the wellbeing of public employees in terms of higher wages and training sensitizing employees about the adverse consequences of taking bribes. Adequate legislation is also needed to be put in place that supports living wages for public sector workers. 

BusinessDay/Mike Asukwo's catoon satire on monetary inducement to police officer

Deliberate efforts by the government to increase salary levels including the minimum wage level and the general economic wellbeing of the masses is necessary. Punitive laws should also be enacted making it a crime to give inducement or take inducement in delivering or obtaining public services etc.  Finally, in order to succeed, government efforts at all levels must be focused and sustained for a very long time into the future. 

Trial Of Nigerian Treasury Looters To Commence Soon-President Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari said Tuesday in Abuja that the prosecution of persons who have stolen national resources will begin in a matter of weeks

Source: Sahara Reporters, Inc. All rights reserved
By Femi Adesinna
Date: August 11, 2015

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President Muhammadu Buhari said Tuesday in Abuja that the prosecution of persons who have stolen national resources will begin in a matter of weeks.

President Muhammadu Buhari

Speaking at a meeting with members of the National Peace Committee led by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar in the Presidential Villa, President Buhari declared that his administration was irrevocably committed to doing all within its powers to break the vicious cycle of corruption, unemployment and insecurity in Nigeria.

"Nigeria has to break this vicious cycle before we can make progress," the President said, adding that his administration was diligently getting facts and figures pertaining to the nation's stolen funds, before proceeding to the prosecution of identified culprits.

President Buhari told General Abdulsalami and members of his committee that the Federal Government, under his leadership, will not only ask for the return of  stolen funds that have been stashed in foreign banks, but will also ensure that those who stole the funds are put on trial in Nigeria.

The President also said that as part of its actions to address the national problems it inherited, his administration was reorganising Nigeria's revenue generating institutions.

The President explained that a single treasury account had been established for all Federal revenue to ensure greater probity, transparency and accountability in the collection, disbursement and utilisation of national funds. 

"We have really degenerated as a country. Our national institutions, including the military, which did wonderfully on foreign missions in the past, have been compromised. But we are doing something about it. The military is now retraining and morale has been resuscitated.

"As Petroleum Minister under Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo in the 1970s, I could not travel abroad until I had taken a memo to the Federal Executive Council asking for estacode. Now, everybody does what he wants.

"That is why security-wise and economically, we're in trouble," President Buhari told his guests, adding that those who have stolen the national wealth "will be in court in a matter of weeks and Nigerians will know those who have short-changed them."

Gen. Abubakar and members of his committee urged the Federal Government to be guided by the rule of law in its fight against corruption.

Members of the National Peace Committee who accompanied Gen Abubakar on the visit were Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, His Eminence, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Others were Justice Rose Ukeje (rtd), Prof Ameze Guobadia, Vanguard Newspaper Publisher, Sam Amuka, Dame Priscilla Kuye, Senator Ben Obi, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, and Dr Arthur-Martin Aginam.

The National Peace Committee, formed before the 2015 general elections, was granted permission by the President to transform to a National Peace Council.

Femi Adesina

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

August 11, 2015

Link

http://saharareporters.com/2015/08/11/trial-nigerian-treasury-looters-commence-soon-president-buhari