The Sun News On-line

Operatives of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) have begun a scrutiny of financial transactions at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru, Plateau State.

Sunday Sun learnt that three of the ICPC officials from Abuja stormed the institute on Wednesday evening at the behest of the Presidency and were joined by two of their colleagues in the Plateau State office of the agency on Thursday.
They were said to have immediately taken over the Accounts Unit in their bid to get to the bottom of the alleged financial scam rocking the institution.

The operatives were also said to have held a meeting on Thursday morning with the Acting Director-General, Mr. James Opadiran, before the latter’s departure to the Presidency in Abuja.
The fresh probe by the anti-corruption body is on the heels of recent media reports of the illegal financial dealings allegedly perpetrated by the suspended Acting Director-General, Dr Yakubu Sankey, some of his predecessors and Board members of the foremost training institute in Nigeria for high-level manpower in the military and the civil service.

Sunday Sun had two weeks ago exclusively reported the uncovering of fraudulent transactions amounting to over N600 million at NIPSS (also known as National Institute), with Dr Sankey allegedly at the centre of the mind-boggling sleaze.
At the time of filing this report, Sankey was said to have been invited for questioning by the ICPC in Abuja.

We also gathered that the Acting Bursar, Mr Bawa Ahmed, the Controller of Works, Mr Paul Gunat, and two other staff had also received letters to appear before the Commission in Abuja on Monday.
A source at the institute, however, informed that the task of unraveling the financial mess in the institute might be difficult, claiming that some of Sankey’s former secretarial staff and loyalists in the Bursary Department had since his suspension last week been shredding “vital documents” that could help in the investigation.

The latest visit and quizzing of some of the principal officers of the institute is said to be the fourth in the last four months. In the past, apart from Sankey, the Internal Auditor, Mrs. Emmanuela Omoakhuale, and Bawa Ahmed had also been quizzed by either the ICPC or the police. The interrogations were, however, always inconclusive.

Meanwhile, petitions by staff of the institute have reportedly flooded the Presidency, calling for prosecution of the suspended Acting DG for alleged corrupt practices and other misdemeanour.
NIPSS is under the supervision of the Vice President.
In one of the petitions obtained by Sunday Sun and signed by one Abdulkareem Ibn Musa, Sankey was tagged the “Idi Amin of NIPSS,” who deployed blackmail and intimidation to pull down his former superiors and those perceived as threat to his ambition.

The petition named some of his alleged victims as two former DGs, Major-General Martin Osahor and Prof Akin Akindoyeni, the erstwhile Director of Studies, Professor Ibrahim Bashir, Dr Abdul-Wasiu Tunde Arogundade (Indian hemp allegedly planted in his office), Dr Ozoemenam Isaac Mbachu (accused of fraud and later sacked), Dr Kursim Leonard Fwa (accused of organizing an illegal seminar; placed on suspension for a long time and demoted in salary), Dr Omotayo Poroye (accused of age falsification and sacked), Miss Ethel Ikpo (joined NIPSS in 1987, became Senior Research Fellow 3 in 1998 but had stagnated without promotion since then).

There was also the case of Mallam Tanko Ahmed, a fellow of the National War College, who was allegedly unceremoniously retired by Sankey without regard to the advice of the former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe.