Massive Fraud Rocks Amnesty Office As Stakeholders Call For Probe

By Bukar Bolori

There are strong indications that there is massive fraud in the Presidential Amnesty Office under the leadership of General Barry Ndiomu, with stakeholders calling for its probe.

Sources in critical position in the office have raised the alarm over the alarming plundering of the office under its current leadership.

The stakeholders have called on the anti graft agencies and indeed the supervisory office, the National Security Adviser to look into how the N5.4 billion monthly allocation to the office is being spent.

The sources claim that certain members of staff in the office of the Interim Administrator of the Amnesty Office are being paid huge amount for welfare.

The sources some heads of department receive between N10 and N15 million as welfare.

It was also learnt that some officials are currently be victimized for raising eyebrows over the handling financial matters in the organisation, while some retired officers appointed to the agency but willing to overlook the financial impropriety are given positions of prominence.

It was also learnt that a new Director of administration was deployed from the Head of Service but leadership of the Amnesty office prevented him from resuming effectively.

The sources revealed that all the functions of the Administration department were removed from the former Admin office and new department known as Head of Human Resources, which subsequently was given to a personnel described as being deployed from non mainstream civil service.

The sources also urged the Federal Government to investigate the cooperate system of the Amnesty office, insisting that the office removed N500 million every month for a suspicious cooperative system.

Sources also alleged that workers of the office who have expressed concern over the running of the office have been sent back to the ministries and replaced with newly employed ones.

It was also alleged that shortly before the end of the Buhari administration, the then National Security Adviser, Gen Monguno made moves to shut down the Programme which was resisted by the leaders and people of the Niger Delta.

When Barry Ndiomu was appointed, he said he was at the PAP with a mandate to wind down the programme, but the situation and tension in the region made it impossible for him to abruptly bring the programme to end.

There are serious concerns that the Amnesty Office has lost its importance under Ndiomu having been relieved of its key roles in the region.

The Interim Administrator has since stopped fresh deployment of students for the scholarship programme which endeared government to many in the region. Ndiomu also put an end to the training or empowerment programmes of delegates in the region.