- Director Opens Can Of Worms, Demands Forensic Audit Over Alleged Financial Recklessness
- Says Okauru, Wife, Others Have Turned NGF To Personal Fiefdom
- We’ll Meet In Court, Okauru Threatens
A crisis of monumental proportions appears to have hit the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) if the information in the public space is anything to go by.
A key figure of the forum, the Director, Media and Public Affairs of the forum, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, has opened up on an alleged can of worms bordering on alleging corruption and lack of transparency in the management of the forum.
In an expose and lengthy letter to the NGF chairman and Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq, Bello-Barkindo accused the Director General of the forum, Mr Asishana Okauru, with a plethora of allegations bordering on corruption and fraud.
He stressed that it is not an agent of change but “a conduit pipe for a few individuals”, and demanded a forensic audit of all the NGF accounts including those that were opened during crisis periods to avoid the “prying eyes of governors in the name of NIGOFO among others”.
Barkindo said the NGF accounts had not been audited for 10 years or more, stressing that a few individuals had turned the Forum and its finances into their personal fiefdom.
“I wish to bring to your attention the fact that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat is on the verge of imploding under your watch. This is because the Director-General, whose allegiance lies with somebody outside of the 36 governors that today constitute the Forum, is running an agenda contrary to that of improving the lives and livelihoods of the populace at the subnational level apart from the willful self-aggrandizement and personal gratification that obtains through many illegal transactions.
READ ALSO: No Plan To Break Away From NUPENG, PTD Forum Clarifies
Indeed, the NGF is now more transactional than developmental. It is not an agent of change but a conduit pipe for a few individuals.
“The Director General Okauru, has occupied the office for fifteen years. In those years, instead of a history of progress, the DG and his ED Finance and Admin had turned the Forum and its finances into their personal fiefdom. It is a litany of graft. Millions of Naira is stolen daily through spurious over-invoicing. At different times, the DG and the Executive Directors have had shouting bouts in the open, in the full glare of staff over money. The Secretariats accounts have not been audited in the last decade to say the least, that even the phony auditors invited to mock the auditing process have at various times confessed that the job they are doing for the secretariat is a wash. Has anyone ever wondered why an institution that midwife’s huge monetary deals like the Paris-London refunds does not have a qualified accountant? He asked rhetorically.
Continuing, Bello-Barkindo asked “Has anyone ever wondered why an institution that midwife’s huge monetary deals like the Paris-London refunds does not have a qualified accountant? In an organisation that makes over three billion Naira annually, the total annual income of its entire staff is seventy million naira. Staff of the Forum are always asking where all the money goes. There is a staff that earns N20,000 a month ($20.)
READ ALSO: Rivers Crisis: NLC, TUC, NANS, others protest in support of Fubara
“There are instances. The N630m deductions from the N5bn infrastructure support fund which ended in a shouting bout among governors while you are chairman was a deliberate ploy to make you look bad among your colleagues.
“The secretariat did not brief you adequately. Their instructions from their master’s house, across the street, was to set booby traps and obstacles in your path. I am a witness. On the Paris-London Club transaction which the NGF midwifed, the NGF made close to N19bn out of which the staff of the NGF were to be rewarded with N850m by the Chairman of the Forum, at the time Governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar of Zamfara State.
“My constitutional duty as a public interest journalist locally and internationally is to expose malfeasance. I still stand by my accusations against Okauru and his wife. They stole the DG’s job. The interview that brought Okauru to office was conducted by Restral Consulting, an outfit solely owned by Ifueko Omoigui Okauru who at the time was Chairman of the FIRS and operating a consulting firm, even as a high earning civil servant. They commit crimes upon crimes and expect to get away with it. But every day is for the thief and one day for the owner.
READ ALSO: Fuel Subsidy is Scam; Tinubu’s Policies Are Good, Gov Otti Declares
“The sale of a plot donated to the secretariat by the FCT minister is another case in point. The plot situated in the heart of Abuja referred to as the Central Business District was sold by Okauru to Mrs Okauru for a paltry N800m, a cost they decided in their bedroom. No plot of land in that district goes for less than N4bn then and N10bn today. The whereabout of the proceeds in both organizations are still uncertain. At the time, Gov Rochas Okorocha had protested the insider trading deal, a crime in the eyes of the law.
“I am narrating all these to illustrate the scenario under which the majority of staff of the Forum, who are serving you and your colleagues diligently are working. All is not well at the NGF. I have had cause to write to the DG on his obnoxious behavior and in fact even previously resigned my appointment with the Forum at different times only to be persuaded to stay that things would get better, but instead they got worse. The point I am making is that I have never been afraid to say the truth. All contracts are awarded to Okauru’s clan, just as HR reforms contract at the Forum was awarded to a car-dealer. Ask the staff.
“Exposing these infractions and several others like them have been the major reasons why Okauru would threaten to take my life. As the vehicle for aiding donor agencies to interact with the subnational on the same platform, the NGF earned money from grants. However instead of utilizing the money for the collective good of the organization, Okauru paid a few of his minions but even they complained that he shortchanged them. Okauru is narcissistic and a pathological liar. A man who would abandon his wife and three kids of tender age to marry another for her money is obviously desperate and can kill for money. That is why I took his threat on my life seriously.
“On the Paris-London Club transaction which the NGF midwifed, the NGF made close to N19bn out of which the staff of the NGF were to be rewarded with N850m by the Chairman of the Forum, at the time Governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar of Zamfara State. Okauru and his accomplice sat on the money for nearly a year until I led the staff to his office to demand the payment of the share of the Forum’s workers. This action evoked a shameless finger-pointing exercise between Okauru and Jibia. Eventually the money was shared in a manner that shocked everyone. Okauru alone took N250m while he gave his Executive Directors N200m each. The remaining staff were left with N200m. the staff were agitated and wanted to protest this sharing formula, but the other Director (Legal) and I held the Forum together and pleaded with the staff to let it go.
“In my opinion, the NGF requires a forensic audit of all its accounts including those that were opened during crisis periods to avoid the prying eyes of governors in the name of NIGOFO among others.”
Firing back, Okauru, in a response via telephone to the petition, told an online medium THE CONCLAVE that someone just sent him a copy of the petition on Sunday afternoon.
He said, having run through the petition, it is replete with ‘100 per cent’ libel.
Okauru said that since the petitioner had indicated in the petition that his lawyer had filed a suit in court, “it would be advisable we meet in court.”
According to him, “He has put a lot of things out there in the public domain to blackmail the NGF and myself. But as I have said, we will be glad to meet him in court. Thank you for getting in touch.”
The whole country is waiting to see how this whole scenario pans out.
