All indications show that the travails of Prof. Innocent Ujah over the past four months may not be over yet as his troubles with the anti-corruption agencies have taken a new dimension and continued into the New Year 2016. Prof. Innocent Ujah, the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Yaba, Lagos, a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Health is to be arraigned in court on corruption charges by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
InfoTrust reliably gathered that Prof. Ujah may be arraigned for prosecution in the court following the conclusion of investigations by both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on the Director General for corrupt practices.
The 61-year old Ujah has been dogged by allegations of corruption, nepotism, misappropriation of staff emoluments, fraudulent employment of workers without due process and the distortion of staff nominal rolls to cover-up the fraudulent practices, gross impunity, autocracy and disregard for public service regulations in his almost 6 years in office as the NIMR Director General.
In an apparent reaction to the lawsuit filed against him for prosecution, the Director General has vented his anger as a transferred aggression on two of his Directors namely Mr. S.R. Olagundoye, the Director of Finance and Accounts and Mr. Francis Osagiede, the Deputy Director of Internal Audit.
Ujah, according to a source is pointing accusing fingers at his Directors for his travails. Consequently, he mandated his Director of Administration to serve the duo queries accusing their offices for complicity in leaking financial documents he alleged to be used in writing petitions against him. The two officers were given a 48-hour ultimatum to respond to the query which they did according to report.
Meanwhile, in another development, InfoTrust reliably gathered that both the 2014 and 2015 promotion exercises conducted for eligible junior workers in the Institute between November and December 2015 was used as a punitive measure against the workers for their contributions to the travails of the top management officers including the Director General, the Director of Administration and the Director of Finance and Accounts in relation to corruption investigations by EFCC and ICPC.
Our source pointed out that only 3 of the 16 and 7 of the 26 workers passed the 2014 and 2015 promotion examination respectively. Only those who passed the examinations were invited for oral interview component of the promotion exercise. The results of the promotion examinations conducted in November were only made public to the affected workers a month later in December 2015.
InfoTrust also reliably gathered that the 2012 and 2013 promotion arrears and the 9-month shortfall which Prof. Ujah and the Director of Finance and Accounts initially publicly denied at a press conference called on August 20 2015 where he claimed that the Budget Office in Abuja was yet to pay NIMR the money being agitated for by the workers and that whosoever that cares to find out may go to the Budget Office to find out have now been paid to the workers. This denial of withholding the workers’ money was widely reported in both the print and electronic media.
At the press conference, Prof. Ujah claimed that “The institute like other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) submitted its request for payment of the arrears for promotion exercises conducted in 2012 and 2013 to the Budget Office, Abuja. Up till this moment, we have not received any financial allocation to that effect, despite our repeated visits to the Budget Office. We made it known to the Union that as soon as the Federal Government releases the fund we shall pay the affected staff. The fact that no fund has been received to pay these arrears can be verified from the Budget Office.”
However, five days later during the agreement signing meeting he had with the Union when the heat started to build up on him, Prof. Ujah ate his words, conceded defeat and agreed to pay the workers their entitlements when he shockingly realized that he had no option following evidences of funds received from the Federal Government regarding the salary and promotion arrears he initially denied were shown him and the Director of Finance and Accounts.
The workers were paid their money in three tranches via Remita on November 10, November 24 and December 21 2015 respectively. The three tranches of payments were made from the Finance and Accounts Division of the Institute and not from Abuja through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
According to information, Ujah had to source for funds close to N50 million from an unknown source to pay the workers what he owed them. Some staff of the Institute interviewed by InfoTrust expressed their strong desire that “The Federal Government through the ICPC and ICPC should intensify and fast-track their investigations on this serious misconduct among other serious allegations of corruption by Prof. Ujah which have been widely reported in both local and international news media platforms without any compromise.
“They should be punished severely for lying against the government and misappropriating public funds. I would describe this as stealing people’s money. If we did not make noise, that is how they would have gone away with it. The Federal Government should really come in and deal with them for this gross misconduct. They should be made to return the remaining looted NIMR funds adding up to millions of naira to the Federation account just as other politicians found to have stolen government money are to be made to do as promised by President Muhammadu Buhari at different for a,” source said.
Meanwhile, according to reports, a bizarre aspect of the promotion interview exercise scheduled to hold between December 15 and 18, 2015 but was conducted between December 15 and 16, 2015 for the workers as part of the agreement with the Union. The promotion interviews were conducted till late in the night, as late as 9.00 p.m, according to another source.
The source quipped, “It is shameful that being scientists as purported, the conveners of the promotion exercise headed by Prof. Ujah could not apply basic scientific principle to time allocation in determining how long it would take to interview an individual in order to know how many candidates the interview panel would be able to interview within a reasonable time from morning to the usual closing time of 4.00 p.m.
“Perhaps this would have enabled allocation of time to the candidates by dividing them into batches and inviting them based on this over the four days scheduled for the exercise contrary to the choking and haphazard way the last exercise was carried out without any consideration of the convenience of the workers.
“Rather, the interview panel headed by Prof. Ujah muddled up and conducted the interviews within two days contrary to the scheduled four days stated in the notification sent to the candidates thereby subjecting them to undue stress and hardship without regard for their dignity. “Some candidates sat down helplessly waiting for as long as 10 hours to be interviewed throughout first day without getting the opportunity only to be asked late in the night to return the next day and sat down again for hours outside under the laboratory complex with heat radiating from the scotching sun doing them no good while the interview panel sat in a fully air-conditioned Board room. The safety of the workers who are mostly non-resident within the NIMR premises but live far away were not considered given the recent security challenges in the Lagos environment” a senior staff of NIMR said.
Another staff disclosed that a similar scenario occurred a few years ago when workers were interviewed till 11.00 p.m. late in the night whereby some workers had to sleep in their offices as they could not go home late in the late after the interview.
Those who ventured to leave for home after being interviewed were reported to have arrived their homes around 1.00/2.00 a.m. The workers were reported to be helpless as they were allegedly told in a sarcastic manner by the Director General that “those who wanted to leave may leave”.
A staff looking dejected lamented that, “We know leadership through administration is for ensuring welfare of the followers. The case is the opposite here in NIMR where leadership is meant to punish and oppress the workers. They seem to derive joy in seeing the workers suffer for what ought to be their rights. This is nothing but sheer wickedness.
“The Senior Management Committee (SMC) is not even involved in all the decision being taken now as the last SMC meeting was held in June 2015. The Director General and the Director of Administration are those taking all the decisions without recourse to the SMC. Anyway, aside from the insensitivity of the Director General about staff welfare, I would also blame it on the inefficiency and incompetence of the Director of Administration whose qualifications are already in doubt by many.”
Another source who pleaded anonymity pointed out that, “This is what contributed to the sacking of a staff, Mr. Philip Anochie, who left the interview venue under a similar scenario after waiting from morning till 7.00 p.m. without being called for interview a few years ago. On his return the next day hoping to be interviewed, Mr. Anochie was not allowed to attend the interview session for leaving the previous day. It was claimed that he was called for interview after he had left the venue after 7.00 p.m. on the previous day”
