By Victoria Hanson, Lagos The Federal Government has said that top civil servants in the director cadre have been dismissed for extorting morning from applicants to give them job in one of the parastatals under the Ministry of Information.
Mr. Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture who said he discovered the scam on assumption of office, explained that the Grade Level 17 officers collected N400, 000 each from 400 applicants to give them job.
According to him, the fraudulent officials even went as far as putting the names of the applicants in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System (IPPIS) before the fraud was discovered.
Mr. Mohammed spoke in Lagos on Saturday, during a meeting with some selected On-Air-Personalities.
The meeting was part of the minister’s five-day consultations with critical stakeholders in the media industry.
According to him, “the first scandal I met in one of the parastatals when I assumed office was the illegal employment of 400 people. This scandal started with very senior officers up to level 17 in that department. They sent out letters and text messages asking people to apply for jobs for a fee of N400, 000 and they were given letters of employment.
“They did not stop there. They invited these people to go and be captured on the IPPIS and they even took cameras to hotels to get them captured. At the end of the day, the bubble burst. One of the victims told these officials, ‘you cannot take my money and still disengage me. I have a valid letter’.
“That is how we got to know that there is a dedicated account these people pay to. Of course, we dismissed these officials and we even handed them over to the police.”
The minister urged the OAPs further that, ”President Buhari is leading the war against corruption right from the front, and we implore all Nigerians to support him. We appeal to you to leverage on your important platforms to support this war by ensuring that Nigerians are well informed about the evils of corruption,” he said, adding: ”This is not Buhari’s war. This is not APC’s war. This is Nigeria’s war and failure is not an option.”
Explaining why Nigeria must fight corruption to a standstill, Mohammed said it deprives the people the opportunity of reaping the dividends of democracy, in addition to stifling good governance.
”When the money meant to construct roads are embezzled or misappropriated, the end results are that the roads are not built and the people suffer and even die in avoidable road accidents. When the money meant for education is looted, we are unable to provide quality education for our children. When the money meant to fight terrorism is looted or diverted for prayers, publicity, purchase of land for maritime university or simply to rally support for a political party, soldiers die needlessly, hordes of widows emerge and people are pushed from their communities to IDP camps.
”These, in stark reality, are the costs of corruption. We must give a face to corruption and stop talking about it in the abstract. Nigerians must know that when they celebrate corrupt people, they are celebrating their own deprivations, the denial of the dividends of democracy and the endemic poverty in our society.”
