Job racketeering: Reps panel mull arrest warrant as AMCON, budget office ignore summon

The house of representatives has threatened to issue an arrest warrant on three government agencies over failure to appear before it.

The agencies are the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), the budget office, and the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON).

Yusuf Gagdi, chairman of the ad hoc committee investigating job racketeering and mismanagement of IPPIS in the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), made the threat during a plenary session on Wednesday.

Gagdi said the committee was in a dilemma as to why the IPPIS and the budget office were not present at the meeting, threatening to exercise its constitutional powers if they fail to appear before the panel.

Section 89 (1d) of the constitution empowers lawmakers to issue a warrant to “compel the attendance of any person who, after having been summoned to attend, fails, refuses or neglects to do so and does not excuse such failure”.

The committee subsequently summoned the accountant general of the federation to bring along the IPPIS officer before the committee on Thursday,  August 10, 2023.

The lawmakers added that any further attempt to run away would be resisted.

Gagdi also queried why Haruna Kolo, the prime suspect in the Federal Character Commission (FCC) job racketeering saga, did not appear before the committee after he was asked to present himself today.

TheCable had reported how Kolo, a former staff of the FCC alleged that job seekers paid millions of naira into his personal accounts for him to take to Muheeba Dankaka, chairman of the agency.

“I also don’t know why Kolo is not coming back to appear before this committee. He seems to have absconded. I will sign a letter to AMCON to produce Kolo on Thursday,” Gagdi said.

“It is better he listens to us unless he is acting a script and selling lies to us. He should come so we can interact with him. We owe everybody the duty of care.

“We need him by 10 a.m tomorrow, the clerk of the committee should call AMCON on the phone, [and] tell them to produce Kolo or do they know what Kolo is hiding?

“AMCON must come here, we must be accountable to Nigeria.”

Gagdi said the committee would “exercise its constitutional powers” if Kolo failed to appear tomorrow, as he has been been accused of working in three different institutions.

‘COMMISSIONERS GET SLOTS’

Meanwhile, according to Abdulrman Ibrahim, a witness in the ongoing investigation, commissioners usually get job slots.

Ibrahim, speaking on job racketeering, also faulted claims by some commissioners in the FCC that they had not been given any slot since they were appointed.

Being a beneficiary of the job racketeering scheme himself, and the personal assistant to a commissioner in Taraba, he said, “all the commissioners were given slots”.

“They were given two slots each per state. There was an interview to that effect and other processes followed in 2023. A letter of employment was given to me after the interview,” he said. 

On his part, Yisha’u Gambo, a driver to the commissioner representing Taraba, said he collected N2 million for Kolo, which was paid by job seekers.

“Kolo met me and said I should talk to people that need employment so that he could talk to them. Then he called me to bring one person and I said there are many that have been talking to him that they are willing to buy slots,” Gambo said.

“After a month, Kolo called me and said that there is another slot for N1.5 million.”