The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) kick-started a probe of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, (SSAP-SDGs), Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire over an alleged fraud running into millions of naira.
According to reports made available to NIGERIACRIME, government officials colluded with private officials to dupe the Nigerian government.
Earlier, a non-governmental organisation, Anti Corruption Advocacy International (AAI), petitioned the anti-graft agency, via a written petition.
The group alleged that the commission carried out a fraudulent transaction through double payment to a contractor for the same contract with the same narration of the same project at Aliyu Mustapha Primary School, Yola, Adamawa State.
The EFCC, last week invited the SSA for thorough questioning to ascertain the level of the commission’s involvement and ordered her to present herself on Wednesday for another round of investigation.
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It was gathered that some senior officials who might be culpable in the alleged fraud are also being questioned. Senior Directors in the Accounts and Finance Department as well as the Special Project Unit (SPU) who were in the known and are in charge of the processing of contracts at the OSSAP-SDGs may be invited for questioning by the EFCC.
According to the AAI’s petition dated 20 September 2022, received and acknowledged by the EFCC the following day, the contractor, “Exceed Klass Nigeria limited, registered in May July 2018 with RC Number 1508363 with accounts number 6546654010 at FCMB was given the job to construct 3 nos of 6 classroom blocks with VIP toilets at Aliyu Mustapha Primary School, Yola, Adamawa State with a contract sum of one hundred and five million four hundred and thirty-nine thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one naira, seventy-five kobo (N105,439,921.75).”
The petition was written to the EFCC by the Anti-Corruption Advocacy International
The AAI says on 24 December 2020, OSSAP-SDGs paid the sum of N105,439,921.75 to Exceed Klass Nigeria Limited, and just 19 days after, which was on 13 January 2021, another same N105.439,921.75 payment was paid by OSSAP-SDGs to the same contractor through Remita Payment Platform.
“it is an indisputable fact this alleged fraud was carefully planned and executed by these perpetrators within the OSSAP-SDGs,” the anti-graft crusader informed the EFCC in the petition.
The President of AAI, Victor Chinasa said, “The OSSAP-SDGs has been embroiled in various corruption cases since 2020 and only God knows when it will stop unless the government of President Muhammadu Buhari orders for a special investigation of the finances of the Office and dissolved the entire management of the OSSAP-SDGs if truly the President really wants to fight corruption in the country.
“OSSAP-SDGs has turned to be a den of corruption.”