- Dankaka embroiled in alleged monumental scandals
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
The chairperson of Federal Character Commission, Muhaeeba Dankaka, and some commissioners of the agency have been battling to save their jobs following startling revelations of how they allegedly turned the agency to a market place where jobs meant for unemployed Nigerians are sold to highest bidders.
Dankaka and some of the agency’s commissioners have been engaging in accusations and counter-accusations of fraudulent dealings, abuse of office and job racketeering at the hearing of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating job racketeering at federal establishments.
The committee is investigating ministries, departments, agencies, parastatals, and tertiary institutions on personnel recruitment, employment racketeering, and the mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.
The allegations were initially brought against Dankaka, her close aides and family members by some commissioners of the agency who appeared before the Yusuf Gagdi-led ad hoc committee with evidences of how the chairperson and her allies have allegedly been running a racketeering ring by withdrawing people’s employments and selling them.
Addressing the probe panel, Moses Anaughe, the commissioner representing Delta State, accused Dankaka of using agents to sell employment slots. He claimed that she sometimes demands 10 percent of the total vacancies in MDAs.
“Dr. Dankaka will request the chief executives to come to her office and discuss 10 per cent. She does collect 10 per cent from all MDAs of all the employment she is signing. All those 10 per cent she is collecting, those are the slots that she employs agents that are selling. I have two employment letters here of her children in juicy agencies where the annual salary is N6.1 million; the other is N8.2 million. I have the appointment letters here.
“I just also want to inform this committee that if she finds any agency doing employment that is paying more than these MDAs, she will move them to that MDA. She moves them from MDA to MDA,” he said.
Anaughe added that, “She has a lot of agents selling slots for her. After selling, they have a central pool where they remit all the monies, whereby they will withdraw and collect USSD and give it to her. I have all the account details here. In my submission, we have a lot of things to reveal.”
In his remarks, Abdulrazak Adeoye, the commissioner representing Osun State, accused Dankaka of removing people’s names from the payroll and replacing them with others.
He said, “She surreptitiously removed the names of Nigerians from the payroll of FCC and replaced them without the knowledge of most commissioners.”
Similarly, Mamman Alakaye, the commissioner from Nasarawa State, also tendered some documents to the committee, purported to be employment involving Dankaka’s son.
“Mr. Chairman, I want to tender a document to support what my colleagues have said so far. For example, her son was employed at NCC, which I am aware of. Just last week, she transferred him from NCC to Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission. He did his documentation with IPPIS just this week. I have the document to tender,” he said.
HOW 24 NIGERIANS LOST JOBS TO DANKAKA’S ALLEGED RACKETEERING
The commissioners claimed that the FCC chairperson and her aides have so far sold jobs belonging to 24 Nigerians.
“For example, her son was employed at NCC, which I am aware of. Just last week, she transferred him from NCC to Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission. He did his documentation with IPPIS just this week. I have the document to tender”
Thirteen out of the people who claimed to be employed by the commission in various Federal Government agencies have lodged complaints with the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating job racketeering.
They accused Dankaka of wrongfully replacing their names with others.
In their submitted documents, the petitioners sought redress for the “unjust disengagement” they experienced.
They provided specific details of their job appointments, including employment reference numbers and appointment dates.
The petitioners come from states such as Benue, Kogi, Edo, Osun, Delta, Ondo, Taraba, and Kwara, among others.
Additionally, the petitioners mentioned that 11 of those allegedly unlawfully engaged are primarily from Kwara, while the other two are from Niger and Kogi States, respectively.
According to the petition, the claimants received their letters of appointment on March 30, 2020, and were enrolled in the IPPS in June 2020.
They received their first salary in July 2020. However, in August 2020, they noticed that their salaries were not paid, and upon inquiry, they discovered that their names had been unlawfully substituted.
The petitioners requested that the committee investigate their case thoroughly and ensure justice is served, leading to their reinstatement in their positions.
The petitioners also requested payment of their outstanding payments and punishment for those responsible for the wrongdoing.
One of the victims, Abdulmalik Isa, while testifying before the committee recently, said he had been a victim of the alleged racketeering perpetrated by the staff of the commission.
He said one Haruna Kolo, allegedly a personal assistant of Dankaka, gave him employment but was withdrawn by Dankaka.
Responding to the allegation, Dankaka claimed that Kolo is not his personal aide but a staff of the IPPIS that was seconded to the commission. She said that she only appointed Kolo as the protocol officer for the commission.
Speaking further, Dankaka alleged that some persons were forging her signature to recruit staff.
“But when we got there, I found out we don’t have a protocol (officer), somebody that should be in charge of our travelling. I requested the secretary to give us somebody. Haruna Kolo had been in the FCC for more than ten years before we came. And then they gave us Kolo to be with us so that when we wanted to travel, somebody would be at the airport.
“But surprisingly, we later learnt, not more than three weeks now, that Kolo is the IPPIS desk officer in our office, unknown to me. The letter that went out, they forged my signature.
“Kolo is not my PA, I was not the one that brought Kolo. Kolo is part of them.”
I HAVE BEEN RICH BEFORE JOINING GOVERNMENT – DANKAKA
Responding further to the allegations against her, Dankaka said she had already made money before joining the government, adding that it was a case of corruption fighting back.
She said the commission was “a marketplace for selling jobs” before she joined in 2021.
“I now believe the adage that says when you fight corruption, corruption will fight back. I did not come to this place (FCC) to make money but to serve my father’s land.
“I swear with Almighty God, apart from the oath, I can take an oath with the Quran. Before I came here, I had made my name. I had made my money.
“Before I got to this place (FCC), they were selling slots. The place was like a marketplace. You can find out from people that live in Abuja if I am lying,” she said.
WHO IS DANKAKA?
Findings revealed that the FCC chairperson hails from Offa town in Kwara State.
She is a graduate of the Kaduna Polytechnic and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State. She is a Kaduna-based successful business woman who, before her appointment as the FCC boss, was said to be into construction and consumer product developments.
Her past leadership role includes her headship of the Farida Ventures Limited where she served as Chief Executive Officer. She was the immediate past President of Kaduna Chamber Of Commerce and Industry, Mines and Agriculture.
She was a member of the Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazak’s APC transition committee in 2019. Former President Muhammadu Buhari conferred on Dankaka the prestigious National Productivity Merit Award and Order of the Niger for her contributions to the Nigerian economy as an entrepreneur par excellence.
Her people conferred on her the title of the Erelu of Offa, Kwara State.
OTHER SCANDALS OF DANKAKA
Since Dankaka assumed office in 2021 as FCC chairperson, she has been embroiled in one scandal or the other.
Few months after she started heading the agency, some FCC commissioners leveled allegations of corrupt practices, abuse of office, subversion of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), FCC (Establishment Act), rules for plenary 2015, and illegal arrogation of powers against her.
The FCC staff, who identified themselves as ‘Concerned Commissioners’ forwarded a petition to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and accused Dankaka of committing some infractions while also disregarding their advice and cautions.
The duo of Augustine Wokocha and AbdulWasiu Bawa-Allah, who signed the petition on behalf of their colleagues, said, ““We gathered that one of the malfeasances, perhaps the most egregious is her unilateral decision to employ 22 people of whom 50 per cent of them are not only from her state, but from her senatorial district.”
The commissioners’ representatives added that Dankaka also awarded the sum of N35, 706,002, to a contractor for a media advert, which was over and above the budgetary provision of N7, 409,534 for publicity and advertisement.
They said, “Even the content of the media advert was shallow and thereby required a thorough investigation to determine the actual cost expended on the advert.”
According to Wokocha and Bawa-Allah, the job racketeering status for which their commission is known for is well and alive, especially with the indiscriminate granting of waivers by Dankaka to advertise to MDAs, hence shunning the principle of federal character.
“In a flagrant disobedience to this guideline, which is criminal in the Commission Act for anyone who flouts it, the Chairman is well known to liaise directly with CEOs, sort things out with them, granting waiver and certificate of compliance without recourse to the Commission, as enshrined in Rule 28 of the Rules for Plenary 2015, and thereby creates injury to many job seekers and in the process build animosity among Nigerians,” they said.
While calling on the anti-graft agencies to probe their chairperson, they said “We have noted with pain and disappointment that Dr. Muheeba Farida Dankaka is fond of lobbying, influencing and luring anyone or bodies of authorities that receive complaints against her. But we believe that ICPC will stand in the interest of the country, and her people at large, to get to the root of the matter by launching a forensic investigation due to the rot in the Commission, and prosecute the culprits so as to serve as a deterrent to others.”
Also, a group under the aegis of Youth and Leadership Initiative Group had in 2021, alleged that the FCC chairperson forged some of the academic certificates she presented to the Senate during her screening and that there were inconsistencies in them.
LYGEL had called for her immediate resignation and also asked the National Assembly to scrutinise the documents again.
However, Dankaka, in a statement she personally signed, had debunked the accusations, saying the allegations were false, despicable and desperately fuelled by clandestine motives.
She explained that the certificates in question were obtained before she got married which necessitated the change of name.
Meanwhile, some Nigerians have lamented that the FCC has become a cesspool of corruption and called on the Federal Government to totally overhaul the agency.
One Nigerian who spoke with The Point, a public affairs analyst, Oluyemi Omotosho-Junior said the revelations of job racketeering in the commission has been partly responsible for the worsening unemployment in the country and urged the probe panel to ensure justice in its investigation.
