Job Racketeering: 35 MDAs, Kolo Shun Reps’ Probe

Thirty-five Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and a former protocol officer to chairman of the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Haruna Kolo, yesterday failed to appear before the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating alleged job racketeering in the agency.

According to the committee’s schedule, 40 MDAs were to appear before it on yesterday, but only five turned in while Kolo who is testifying that he was the link person selling jobs on behalf of the FCC chairman, Dr Muyeebat Dankaka, was also absent at the investigative hearing.

Chairman of the panel, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, described the action of the MDAs as an affront to a constituted authority like the parliament.

Gagdi also threatened to summon the directors of MDAs asked to deploy desk officers to the committee to provide necessary information but were nowhere to be found at the hearing.

“Most of these agencies are not respectful of constituted authority. We are supposed to have the presence of 40 agencies but only four are here.

“If the desk officers of head of service, budget office, IPPIS are not here then we should summon their directors to come and sit here so we can do the work together, ” he said.

The five agencies that honoured the panel’s invitation were Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, National Teachers Institute, National Commission for Colleges of Education and National Power Training Institute of Nigeria among others.

While testifying before the committee, two witnesses, Abdulmalik Isah Ahmed and Ali Muhammed Yaro, pleaded that their employment letters be retrieved after they paid the sum of N1million and N2 million respectively to FCC and be returned to them.

The witnesses said they had paid the sum of N1million and N2million to Kolo, then of the FCC and Badamasi Jalo who was coordinating payments for other candidates for employment into the Commission.

Ahmed said their employment letters which were earlier issued to 27 of them were later retrieved from them at a meeting on July 17, 2023 by a committee which investigated them.

“I graduated 11years ago without a job and I had the chance to become a Boko Haram but I did not because I want to be a good citizen of Nigeria. My brothers, Nurudeen Yaro and Abdulrazak Yaro, paid the sum of N2million to Badamasi Yaro’s account on the 2nd of August 2022. Badamasi Yaro is working with Haruna Kolo and the money paid into his account was for a job at the Federal Character Commission.

“Haruna Kolo told me the slot was from the Chairperson of the commission; that is why I would be captured under the IPPIS platform. Badamasi brought the employment letter with some documents for me on the 5th August 2022. Badamasi took me to Treasury House in Abuja where Kolo Haruna took me to the IPPIS office and I was captured on the IPPIS platform.

“Kolo Haruna and Badamasi told me my posting letter will be ready after two weeks and I got my first salary in January 2023. Five months after the enrollment by IPPIS, Badamasi created a whatsapp group platform for us and we came in February 2023 to see the Director, Human Resources, for posting because Kolo could no longer be reached on phone and that the chairman secured a job for him at AMCON in Lagos.

“Photocopies of our employment letters were collected by the director of Human Resources for posting once he got clearance from the chairperson. On Thursday 13th July 2023, I received a message from Gideon Zubairu, a staff in the Human Resources, that we should come for a meeting on Monday 17th July 2023,” he said.

On his part, Yaro said he had to pay N2 million to get a job with the FCC, adding that  Kolo and Badamasi both told him that he would get his appointment letter in January and he got captured on IPPIS on August 5, 2021 but never got placement.

“I paid N2 million to Badamasi Jalo’s account, another victim, but acting as an agent to collect money for Kolo, ” he said.

Ruling after the interface, the committee said Kolo, the secretary to Taraba State FCC commissioner and driver should appear before the panel today.

On Monday, Kolo told the lawmakers he had been collecting between N1 million to N1.5 million for his boss from individual applicants before he left the commission.

“The FCC chairman instructed me to liaise with one Mr Shehu who is a personal driver and PA to the Taraba state commissioner. As a desk officer, I am responsible to take whoever is employed to IPPIS for capturing. No one can go there without a letter from the chairman or Human Resource officer of FCC,” he said.