An investigative report by PREMIUM TIMES has exposed how a committee of the House of Representatives charged with investigating job racketeering in government parastatals has been engaging in extortion of money from heads of federal ministries, departments and agencies, including those of tertiary institutions across the country.
The committee, which initially gained public support for its anti-corruption stance, is accused of intimidating agency heads into paying bribes to avoid public disgrace and indictment.
The report indicts heads of the nation’s federally-owned universities; 51 vice-chancellors; rectors of the 35 federally-owned polytechnics and provosts of the 27 federally-owned colleges of education.
So far, the probe has reportedly collected over N267 million ($652,000) in bribes from tertiary institutions alone, with the potential to extort billions from various federal agencies.
The committee, known for loudly posturing as an anti-corruption body, has ironically been intimidating heads of agencies into paying huge bribes to avoid being disgraced in public and indicted in a report to be issued after the ongoing hearings to which almost all the heads of the nation’s federal institutions have been summoned to appear.
The corrupt ad hoc committee of 39 lawmakers was constituted following a motion on 5 July by Oluwole Oke, a Peoples Democratic Party member representing the Obokun/Oriade federal constituency of Osun State, who urged the lower legislative chamber to investigate the monumental graft surrounding personnel recruitment in government parastatals.
“The process of employment into the civil service has become one that is fraught with endemic corruption,” Mr Oke told his colleagues as he read a prepared motion listed on the Order Paper of the day.
“Public institutions have since stopped the process of advertising for jobs and vacancies. Even in the few instances where adverts are published, the slots are already commodified and available for the highest bidders. Most institutions now sell employment notwithstanding the qualification of the applicant and the ability of the applicant to perform optimally on the job,” he added.
Mr Oke then requested the House to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate all MDAs and tertiary institutions. The Deputy Speaker, Ben Kalu, who presided over plenary on that date, agreed. He then went ahead to constitute an ad hoc committee with 37 members—one lawmaker per state and the Federal Capital Territory.
Deputy Speaker Ben Kalu did not announce a chairperson for the Committee. It was Speaker Tajudeen Abbas who, the following day, appointed Yusuf Gagdi (APC, Plateau) to lead the panel. Mr Gagdi, one of the contenders who stepped down for Mr Abbas during the June speakership tussle, was not on the original list announced by the deputy speaker.
Mr Oke was also not on the list announced by Mr Kalu. Neither was he mentioned by the speaker as a member of the committee. It remains unclear how he became a very active member of the panel.
Many Nigerians, especially those feeling shortchanged by the routine recruitment misconducts in several federal agencies, praised the formation of the committee and had high expectations that the panel would produce shocking revelations and restore sanity to the recruitment processes in the federal service.
The highly anticipated inquiry began on 25 July with a classic case involving the Federal Character Commission (FCC), an agency established to ensure every state of the federation is equitably represented in the federal public service, but which soon became notorious for aiding and abetting job racketeering.
The dramatic and nauseating FCC case gave the Committee widespread publicity and heightened public interest in the proceedings. Mr Oke was very active and was highly critical of Muheeba Dankaka, the chairperson of the FCC, who sent representatives to the committee with a letter saying she was too ill to personally attend the hearing on the opening day. But shortly before the letter was read, Mr Oke and another lawmaker from Nasarawa, Jonathan Gaza, walked into Hearing Room 034, the venue of the proceeding.
Not long after the lawmaker’s arrival, Mrs Dankaka’s letter was read by Mr Gagdi, who almost agreed with the request to fix another date for her to reappear. Proving tough, Mr Oke disagreed sharply with his colleagues and insisted that Mrs Dankaka should provide a medical report that she was sick.
PREMIUM TIMES investigation revealed that the initial drama and tough stance of the so-called anti-corruption committee were orchestrated to gain credibility and intimidate agency heads before launching a well-designed scheme to extort money from them through fronts disguised as consultants.
While a few agencies with uncompromising leadership were being scapegoated and harassed during the daily hearing as TV cameras rolled, some committee members were detailed to, behind closed doors, negotiate illicit payments by heads of institutions considered culpable of recruitment irregularities, our findings show.
In exchange for the money paid, those agency heads were to be exempted from scrutiny and public humiliation. They would also be exempted from indictment in the committee’s report. Those who failed to pay were to be subjected to public humiliation and disgrace during sham public hearings flooded by journalists, cameras and microphones.
For instance, on Tuesday, August 15, some committee members met with heads of the nation’s federally-owned universities – 51 vice-chancellors – and afterwards secretly negotiated two million naira bribe from each of them to save themselves from public humiliation and eventual indictment.
During the negotiation with the leadership of the Committee of Vice Chancellors, representatives of the committee demanded three million naira from each institution. The professors protested, saying their institutions were poorly funded and that it would be difficult to raise the bribe money.
The committee members then shifted ground, reducing the bribe payment to two million naira each but warning of dire consequences for anyone who failed to pay. The vice-chancellors were then given Account Number 5400495458, domiciled in Providus Bank, to pay into. The lawmakers even instructed the vice-chancellors to “clearly indicate the name of the institution in the payment invoice”.
The committee members also held separate meetings with rectors of the 35 federally-owned polytechnics and provosts of the 27 federally-owned colleges of education. Three million naira bribe was then demanded from each of them.
When contacted, the chairperson of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), Lillian Salami, said she was at a meeting and would call our reporter back. The University of Benin vice chancellor has yet to do so as of the time of publishing this report. Subsequent calls to her did not connect as her mobile telephone appeared to be switched off . She also did not reply to a text message sent to her on the matter.
Sagir Abbas, the alternate chairperson of the group and vice-chancellor of Bayero University Kano, did not answer or return calls. He also did not reply to a text message sent to him.
The officials were given a deadline of Thursday, 24 August, to pay or be ready to incur the wrath of the entire House of Representatives, not only in the job racketeering case but in other matters as well.
We were able to determine that several agency heads, panicked by the threats of the lawmakers, have since paid the bribes.
From the tertiary institutions alone, over N267 million is estimated to have been collected by the panel in illicit payments. And with the scope of the committee now expanded to cover the federal government’s almost 1,500 MDAs and corporations, the committee may be on its way to extorting billions from the nation’s federal institutions.
The newspaper investigation found that one of the bank accounts into which the bribe payments are being made belongs to a certain Ama Business Solutions, a company fronting for the committee as a consultant. The company, with registration number 3156889, was incorporated on 12 August 2020 to engage in the business of general contract and merchandising. Company documents gave the firm’s principal place of business as Plot 2249, Zone 4 Plaza, Constantine Street, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja.
AMA Business Solution has two directors – Abubakar Lawal Sambo (44) and Abdulrahman Lawal Sambo (48). Both men, who appear to be brothers, claim to be businessmen, according to their corporate filings.
But the older of the brothers, Abdulrahman Sambo, was also profiled as having served as a senior legislative aide to former Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila between 2019 and 2023. That meant he served as director of a private enterprise while being a public servant, a violation of Nigeria’s Code of Conduct law.
His profile also claims he served in the 2019 APC presidential campaign council and sits on the Board of Chrysalis Youth Foundation, of which Olawale Edun, the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, is chairperson.
The Sambos could not be reached to comment on our findings. Their company has no online presence, and our reporters could not find them or their business when they visited the address listed on the company’s corporate fillings. They also have yet to respond to an email sent to them.
