Chukwudi Nweje
Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Prof. Charles Dokubo, has dismissed an alleged N3.2 billion contract scam in the agency.
In a statement by his Special Assistant (Media), Murphy Ganagana, yesterday, he described an online report that the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, and the National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno, were awarded contracts by the Programme as “fake news and sacrilegious…
“This allegation is malicious and mischievous. Neither the NSA nor the First Lady had ever requested for, or secured contracts for their associates or family members who are not even known to the Amnesty Office,” he said.
Ganagana, however, acknowledged that there is “a contract for empowerment of 300 Niger Delta youths in oil and gas instrumentation,” and that the contract “was awarded to Messrs Glassfa Continental Limited, and another contract for training and empowerment of 400 delegates in coastal fishing was awarded to Innotek Royal Services Limited.
“However, the two contracts in question were beyond the threshold of the special adviser. Therefore, in line with statutory guidelines and regulations, a Due Process No Objection was sought and obtained from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) vide a letter OSAPND/GCL/VT/2018/11010 dated October 19, 2018. Consequently, approval for award of contracts to the two companies was granted by the BPP.”
Ganagana insisted that contrary to reports by the online news portal, “no dime has been paid to any of the two companies. It is pertinent to state that processes leading to payment of 15 per cent of contract sum are yet to be completed for the two companies, which have not been handed delegates for training. Files of the two companies on the contracts have not reached Prof. Dokubo’s table.
“On the allegation of 30 companies discovered to have been perpetrating contracts fraud worth billions of naira, by an external auditing committee said to have been inaugurated by Prof. Dokubo, it exists only in the imagination of the writers as no such committee was inaugurated at the Amnesty Office, under Prof. Dokubo, and no contract fraud was unearthed at any time.”
On alleged award of contracts to Monguno and Mrs. Buhari, Ganagana reiterated that “the allegation that Prof. Dokubo has been boasting that he cannot be sacked as a result of his ties with NSA and the First Lady is a dangerous and wicked lie calculated at inciting and creating gullies of bad blood in the cordial relationship between Prof. Dokubo and General Monguno, a highly respected, disciplined and incorruptible military officer with impeccable and enviable records in a career that spanned over three decades.
“It is also on record that the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, like Mr. President, abhors corruption and will not encourage fraudulent activities.
“We urge the public to discountenance the report in its entirety, as it is the handiwork of an angry and hungry bunch, whose attempt to coerce Prof. Dokubo to award them contracts was courageously rebuffed by him. They have threatened and vowed to fight dirty to remove him from office, but, their evil machinations will come to naught.”