The audacity of looting was what happened to the Ministry of Environment’s budget for the 2018/2019 financial year, according to a detailed Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) interrogation log which The PREMIER exclusively obtained. At the top of the looting chain, allegedly, was the former permanent secretary, Mrs Ibukun Odusote, followed by her directors, deputy directors and contractors.
The interrogation log of the suspects showed that the cabal had no mercy for Nigeria’s commonwealth nor the indigent communities which the funds they allegedly looted were meant to remediate their environment. Like a company would share dividends to its shareholders at the end of a financial year, the cabal allegedly shared the environment ministry’s budget of 2018/2019, the log reveals. The corruption nest was so interwoven that even the then minster of finance, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, was not spared.
Managing director of Flexiserve Technologies Limited, Sa’ad Ali Shuwa, claimed during interrogation that he facilitated the release of the ministry of environment’s budget through the finance minister, Shamsuna Ahmed. He said he was compensated with N20 million by Mrs Odusote and and was promised a lucrative contract the following year. Mrs Odusote, who retired from the civil service in February this year after she clocked the mandatory exit age of 60 years, was fingered as the alleged ring leader by almost all the suspects the EFCC quizzed.
She allegedly appointed her husband’s company, Hawthorne Associates as the lead consultant for the Environment Ministry. The company would supervise seven other contractors in a contract with a lifespan of three moths – June to August, but was paid 100 percent even before the job began. The managing director of Hydrocliv Limited, Uri Solomon Idinyang, told interrogators that a co-owner of Hawthorne Associates Limited, Oluwatoyin Adewale Jokosenumi, told all the seven contractors that 50 to 55 percent of the contract sums would be given back to him in dollars for certain aspects of the projects which would be completed by his firm. He said they all complied even though the order was clumsy.
The EFCC interrogation log began with the grilling of Owoicho Paul Ugbaha, a deputy director of procurement by operatives of the Commission who asked him how contracts are approved in the ministry. He told them that the Ministerial Tenders Board, which the Permanent Secretary heads as the chairman, has the authority to approve contracts ranging from N10 million to N500 million for works, and N5 million to N100 million for goods and services. He said the Ministerial Tenders Board of the Environment Ministry, held meetings three times in 2019 to approve various contracts. But curiously, the date of the last meeting of the board which was held in June, was altered in the minutes to show that it took place on May 6. It was in that irregular meeting that Hawthorne Associates Limited was appointed as the lead consultant for the ministry. The reason for the change in date was not a typographical error, according to the interrogation log.
The Head of Service of the Federation had sent a letter to all the Permanent Secretaries on June 19 informing them of the suspension of all Ministerial Tenders Board. The implication is that any contract approved on or after June 19, 2019 was null and avoid. But rogue civil servants would always find a way to do fraud. The interrogation log reads in part; “That the meeting did not take place on the 6th of May 2019 as reflected on the minutes but took place sometime in June 2019.
That the attendance list of the original minutes had Dr Pat Uyanne, Director of Procurement and Mrs Ify Nsa, assistant director of procurement listed.” Despite a memo suspending all seating of the Ministerial Tenders Board, the Environment Ministry proceeded with the meeting and approved not less than 14 contracts. Owoicho claimed in the log that he was given $6,700 by the technical adviser to the Permanent Secretary in an envelope,a money he never earned. A deputy director of budget in the Ministry of Environment, Margaret Habila Zira, said she was paid estacodes (foreign travel expenses and allowance) of N53 million for two international trips which she didn’t undertake. She was later given a verbal directive by the Permanent Secretary, Mrs Odusote, to pay out N26 million.
She said the director of finance and director of procurement were her witnesses. She also alleged in the log that on April 15 she received N21 million through Remita Platform (an e-payment system) to her personal account which was allegedly used for National Assembly Members committee on Environment. The log also said she received N4.7 million from an undisclosed source, but she transferred the same money to Daniel Habila Galadima, the Technical Adviser to the Permanent Secretary, Mrs Odusote. For Galadima, who is the Technical Adviser to the Permanent Secretary, he said all the departments in the environment ministry remitted five percent of their project sums to him which he would later convert to dollars and handover to Mrs Odusote.
He said the money was meant for the Permanent Secretary to use to visit the project site, but because a consultant has been appointed to supervise such projects, the five percent of all the contract sums were given to officers in-charge of payments and contract management in the ministry. According to the log, Galadima collected N5 million from director of Erosion and Flood Control, N1.7 million from director pollution control and environmental health, N784,000 from director of Drought and Desertification. In the log, Galadima said after converting the money to dollars, he gave them to the Permanent Secretary, who later gave him several envelopes containing the dollars with the names of the recipients on them. A director of procurement in the Environment Ministry, Patrick Chukwunwike Uyanne, said he resumed his post on June 26, 2019 and was given $3,000 for doing nothing.
The log also states that Ify Evelyn Nsa received $5,000 from Galadima which she didn’t earn. She said, according to the interrogation log, that she received money from contractors of the ministry, and was later instructed by Dr Patrick Uyanne to sign and backdate some of the award contracts to the 7th of May, 2019. According to the log, Nsa said she accompanied some of her colleagues to a bank where they collected money wrapped in a box. That on getting to the office, she was instructed to give Galadima N2 million, director Audit, N2 million, director, General Services who is Mr Emile Asuquo N4 million, Mr Paul Ugbaha N4 million and Mr Nwobi, who is director Erosion, N500,000.
She said she was promised N1 million which she never received, the log states. Mrs Odusote, a pastor of the Foursquare Gospel Church Asokoro, is no stranger to this kind of allegation. In 2015, she had survived a sack along with three permanent secretaries over alleged misappropriation of funds, but President Muhammadu Buhari said the evidence against her were not strong enough. He recalled her from suspension in 2018. Whether this time the EFCC evidence could be strong enough against Mrs Odusote remains to be seen.
The current permanent secretary, Ministry of Environment, Dr Bakari Wadinga, has not replied The PREMIER’s letter seeking to know the status of the affected officers. The Accountant General of the Federal, Ahmed Idris, and the Minister of Finance, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, have also not responded to the various inquiry we sent to them concerning the story.
Mrs Odusote, who retired from the civil service in February this year after she clocked the mandatory exit age of 60 years, was fingered as the alleged ring leader by almost all the suspects the EFCC quizzed. She allegedly appointed her husband’s company, Hawthorne Associates as the lead consultant for the Environment Ministry. The company would supervise seven other contractors in a contract with a lifespan of three moths – June to August, but was paid 100 percent even before the job began.
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