There are strong indications that four persons; former Cross River State Auditor General, John Mpama Odey, retired Head of Service, Ogbang Akwaji, suspended Chairman of the CRS Civil Service Commission, Uko Inaku and Joseph Adie, former Accountant-General of CRS, may soon be guests of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, after they recently made startling revelations on live radio.
The revelations, bothering on machinations that they suspectedly inserted a relatively large number of ghost workers into the CRS salary wage bill, also pointed at financial irregularities that appear to still weigh down on state finances.
Odey, the former CRS Auditor General, first blew the whistle two weeks ago, when he appeared on “The Public View”, the Saturday morning news and current affairs programme on local premier private radio station, HIT 95.9 FM, Calabar.
“On a monthly basis, there is a wage bill increase of between N200 million to N300 million, because of the activities of the Civil Service Commission, the CRS Head of Service and the Accountant General of the state. They connive and illegally employ people into the service. In the course of my work I discovered that 3,500 people were illegally brought into the payroll, people employed without the approval of the governor”, Odey revealed, stunning the radio programme’s wide audience and triggering a chain of related events to heat up the state.
On the strength of his revelations, Bassey Edet Otu, governor of CRS, moved swiftly and suspended Uko Inaku, Chairman, CRS Civil Service Commission, further triggering a chain of events and revelations of sharp institutionalized practices that the EFCC appears interested in.
Inaku, Akwaji and Adie, have since appeared on radio to maintain that Odey was the originator and beneficiary of the injection of several persons into the payroll and attendant sharp practices.
We were not immediately told when the anti-graft agency will swoop in, but we were reliably informed that relevant documents have been handed over to the agency, “you will see evidence in the days not too far from now as all four of them will be invited for questioning and possible prosecution”, a source assured us.
This is why sometimes young people arent too fit to handle sensitive positions in government. They lack the basic ingredients needed to run such offices which our fathers and elderstate men posssed .Maturity and Sincerity..influencing promotions and positions in MDAs is the order of the day.Very shameful
That’s the reason they are not doing employment in the State and also not paying gratuity. The immediate past dispensation ripped the state naked with it’s Northern Senatorial district ambition. All the people mentioned there are from there. Please EFCC don’t let them go scot free, they are denying the teaming graduates their right of employment.