How N’Delta ministry officials ‘shared’ N805m

Kabiru Paloma, a junior staff in the ministry of Niger Delta affairs, has revealed how the sum of N805 million, which was taken illegally from the account of the ministry, was shared.

Paloma opened up on Wednesday when the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) arraigned him before a federal high court in Abuja.

The anti-graft body also arraigned Yusuf Agabi (pictured), Nasarawa state candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 election, and Abibu Ayinla, who was in charge of the ministry’s finance and accounts.

During his cross examination by Paul Bassi, counsel to the ICPC,  Paloma, who served as Agabi’s personal assistant, told the court that his boss turned deaf ears to his complaints on how the ministry was using his accounts for illicit transfers.

According to Paloma, Ayinla, who became director of finance in 2014, instructed that the sum of N100 million, which was the balance of the ministry’s constituency project in 2013, be “mopped up”.

Paloma alleged that Ayinla ordered a transfer of N60 million to his account and directed that the remaining N40 million be shared among him, one Dickson, James Ihenacho and Daniel Oba, all staff of the accounts department and the remaining portion of the money be shared to staff of the ministry’s central pay office.

He added that Ayinla also directed the “mopping up” of another balance of N11 million to prevent it from reflecting in the 2014 budget.

Instead of “mopping up” N11 million, Paloma said he shared N10 million among three people, including Ayinla and kept the remaining for himself.

When asked to elaborate on the term “mopping up”, Paloma said “it was stealing”.

He further revealed that his companies: Kapola Nig Ltd, Sindabab Nig.Ltd,KP Energy solution, Balang Construction Nig Ltd, Nadia Collections Nig. Ltd and a personal account in EcoBank, were used for the illegal operations.

“The DFA insisted that the remaining N1 million should be mopped up, making the balance N503 million which had been there for two months without anyone knowing,” he confessed.

However, the decision of Paloma to go against the sharing formula for N333 million exposed the absurdities.

He said after transferring N233 million to Ayinla as instructed, he discovered that there was a balance of N192 million instead of N100 million, and he decided to transfer the whole funds to his companies.

Trouble began when Ayinla wanted to pay a contractor about N150 million and realized that the account was empty.

Agabi, Ayinla, Akpore Okeroghene, Idowu Adewale and Ntu Ngozi are standing trial for defrauding the ministry.

Their case has been adjourned to November 27 and December 4.