
Nigerian senator promoting social networks policy granted multi-million agreement without due procedure – EFCC
Associated News
A Nigerian senator supporting the policy of social media awarded a multi-million agreement without following due procedure when he was a minister, the anti-graft firm, EFCC, said on Monday.
Abba Moro, the former interior minister, is being prosecuted by the EFCC at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The firm said the interior ministry, then under Mr Moro, did not follow due process in the contract award for the 2014 Nigeria Migration Service (NIS) recruitment workout that declared the lives of numerous applicants.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Moro recently prompted his colleagues in the Senate to support the costs which looks for to regulate the usage of social networks in Nigeria.
In his contribution during the dispute by senators, Mr Moro stated lawmakers have in one way or the other been victims on social networks.
“I think everybody here have been victims of the spread of frauds and the manipulation of the internet has actually triggered a lot of havoc to a few of us. Therefore, I increase to support this bill believing that it will safeguard the society versus dishonest components within our society,” the ex-minister turned senator stated.
On Monday, an EFCC witness informed a judge about the dubious recruitment agreement approved by Mr Moro.
Information of Monday’s court session was sent out to PREMIUM TIMES by the EFCC representative, Wilson Uwujaren.
Read Mr Uwujaren’s complete mail listed below.
The trial of previous minister of Interior, Abba Moro, continued on Monday, November 25, 2019, prior to Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court, Abuja, with prosecution witness 12 (PW12), Niyi Adebayo, revealing that the Interior Ministry under Moro and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, the 4th defendant, did not follow due process in the contract award for the 2014 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) task recruitment workout that claimed the lives of lots of job candidates.
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The witness, an officer of the Economic and Financial Commission, EFCC, under interrogation by counsel to Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, S. I. Ameh, exposed that there was a total absence of due process in the e-recruitment platform agreement, which the previous minister granted to Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited.
While identifying the agreement files, tendered as Display AAFD 13, Mr Adebayo stated; “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 arrangement of e-recruitment platform with the draft arrangement prepared by one Mrs S. Adebola, a legal advisor in the Ministry of Interior upon which Moro and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited advanced with the recruitment workout of March 17, 2013 that consequently caused the death of scores of task candidates.”
The contract, the witness said, was performed outside the procedures authorised by the Public Procurement Act for procurement of services. The e-recruitment platform, he further exposed, registered over 675,000 applications at the expense of N1000 (One Thousand Naira) per application which the cash accumulated from the excercise were not remitted to the federal government.
According to him, “Stipulation 3 of the agreement mentions that the agreement is at absolutely no expense to the federal government. The product and the amount associating with the operational expense of N83 million were not caught in the document. Surprisingly, details on a sharing ratio of 70:30 in between the federal government and the professional was not caught in the document.”
Mr Adebayo further exposed 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 likewise paid commission pursuant to the migration recruitment.
The EFCC is prosecuting Mr Moro on an 11-count charge of procurement fraud and money laundering. He is charged together with former irreversible 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, however, made a no-case submission, to which Justice Dimgba gave 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 till January, 28, 2020.
This content was originally published here.