DEVELOPING: Nigerian govt. moves to replace persons under investigation nominated to ICPC board

By Dayo Aiyetan

The federal government will most likely replace the two persons nominated to the board of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, who have since been discovered to be under investigation by the agency.

The ICIR exclusively reported Friday that two persons announced as members of the reconstituted board of the ICPC, Maimuna Aliyu and Sa’ad Alanamu, were being investigated for corruption by the anti corruption agency.

The report indicated that Ms. Aliyu, a former Executive Director at the government-owned Aso Savings and Loans, was being investigated for stealing and diversion of public funds and that charges were being drawn up against her by the ICPC before her appointment.

Mr. Alanamu is also being for, among other allegations, bribery during his tenure as chairman of the the Kwara State College of Education.

A senior presidency source who cannot be named told the ICIR late Friday that the government took the decision to replace the two of them after verifying the allegations that they were under investigation and that the decision to replace them would be announced next week.

He said the government felt embarrassed that persons undergoing criminal investigations were announced as members of the board of the anti corruption agencies handling their case.

However, another source in the government whose name can also not be mentioned told our reporter that the members of the ICPC board announced on Tuesday did not go through any security screening as is traditional for such appointees.

The source said the appointees were picked from a long list of names that had piled up in the two years that the Mohammadu Buhari government came into office.

He said the delay by the government to fill available vacancies led to a situation where a long list had developed of persons seeking appointment into several boards. Such appointments are used for political patronage and rewarding the party faithful.

However, lately, a lot of pressure, it was learnt, had been put on the government to fill some of the vacancies, leading to the recent announcement of appointments into some boards.

Mr. Osinbajo approved a total of 36 new board appointments on Tuesday.

Apart from the ICPC, members were appointed into the boards of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC; the Investment and Security Tribunal and the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission.

However, rather than send the names of the appointees to the State Security Services for proper security screening, the government just announced their appointment, the source said.

When asked to verify the claim that the appointees did not go through security screening, spokesman to the Acting President, Laolu Akande, was not too committal.

In a text message sent in response to our enquiries, he said “the claims will be thoroughly and promptly acted upon with dispatch doing the right if found true.”

This report was first published by the ICIR. We have its permission to republish.