NIMR DG, others undergo 3-day grill for corruption at ICPC

By Omotolani Oresanwo

Prof. Innocent Ujah, the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), and some top management staff including the Director of Administration, Alhaji A.S. Yunusazazzau and Director of Finance, Accounts, Mr. S.R. Olagundoye, the Deputy Director of Administration, Mr. P. Ejiga, and the Deputy Director of Finance and Accounts, Mr. Ogaji reported at the Lagos Office of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on 3 days, October 19, 20 and 21 2015. In their company was the Procurement officer, Mr. Daniel Ochigbo, a principal character in the corruption allegation.

This is in connection to an on-going investigation into allegations of corruption and misappropriation of public funds over the 5 years of Prof. Ujah’s tenure as the Director General of the Institute. They visited the ICPC office in a convoy of a blue Hyundai SUV and a white Toyota Haice Hummer bus with the registration number 12N-07FG and 12N-26FG respectively. On Monday October 19 2015, the convoy left NIMR mid-morning and returned in the evening at about 5 p.m. while they left the Institute at 11.55 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Tuesday October 20 2015 and Wednesday October 21 2015 respectively. It is recalled that the administration of Prof. Ujah from 2010 to date is alleged to be epitomised by corruption, nepotism, misappropriation of staff salaries and promotion arrears, fraudulent employment of workers and the distortion of staff nominal rolls to cover-up the fraudulent practices, gross impunity, autocracy and disregard for public service regulations.
InfoTrust reliably gathered through our correspondent that Prof. Ujah created a scene at the ICPC Office on Monday October 19 2015 when he angrily chastised one of the staff who accompanied the convoy and expressed his displeasure for bringing from NIMR some vital financial documents relating to the corruption investigation to the ICPC office on the request of the anticorruption agency. Ujah was visibly angry with the staff that was only innocently carrying out his lawful duty because he knew those financial documents are evidences that would incriminate him for the allegations of the gross financial misconducts leveled against him. Prof. Ujah thereafter ordered that the staff should immediately return to NIMR. Some of Prof. Ujah’s ‘boys’ who went with him to the ICPC office and who witnessed the scene were later seen frantically appealing to the concerned staff not to let the NIMR community get to know of the shameless act of the Director General.

Reliable sources that InfoTrust interacted with disclosed some of the allegations to include the Christmas and end-of-the-year package for 2014 that involved distribution of one 50kg bag of rice to each member of staff of the Institute was a big fraud by the NIMR’s Tenders Board chaired by Prof. Ujah with the Secretary being the Institute’s Procurement Officer, Mr. Daniel Ochigbo, who is reported to be a close relation of Prof. Ujah. The price at which a 50kg bag of rice was purchased was reported to have been grossly over-bloated at N15,000 per 50kg bag by the Procurement Officer, who is reliably gathered report directly to the Director General rather than to the Director of Finance and Accounts as directed by the Director General in a communication stating that the Procurement Officer is only answerable to him. Investigation revealed that a bulk purchase of about 400 50kg bags of rice ordinarily would have attracted some discounts from the market retail price of about N9,000 to N10,000 as at December 2014 when the commodity purchase was done. A Haier Thermocool Single Door Small refrigerator was also alleged to have been purchased at the price of N142,000 contrary to the market price of N25,000. In the first quarter of 2015, about N4.5million was fraudulently withdrawn from NIMR funds in connivance with the Head of the Clinical Sciences Division with the claim of overhauling a power generating set which its brand new is not up to the amount and was never serviced. The fraud was perpetrated by forging and raising fake quotations and receipts for items in this regard. The neon sign for the just completed NIMR Biomedical Training & Cancer Research Center commissioned on September 29 2015 was alleged to have been designed and delivered for over N2million.
Other corrupt practices alleged to have been committed during the tenure of the Director General also include award of contracts to businessmen, mostly relations, who supplied and were paid millions of naira for substandard, used, non-functional and or refurbished laboratory equipment that were re-packaged in branded cartons in order to present them as new. The Procurement Unit of NIMR headed by Mr. Daniel Ochigbo is alleged to be involved in massive bribery and corruption practices that make bids for contract awards lack transparency and fairness in the Institute. It was disclosed that there are upfront demand of bribes from contractors in form of percentages of the contract cost to favour their biddings which usually cause the over-bloating of cost of contracts and thereby compromising the quality of the supplied products and work done. Reliable sources disclosed to InfoTrust that nepotism is rife in the contract transactions in the Institute because some of the contractors who transact business with NIMR are not even registered as contractors with the Institute. The sources disclosed that the business enterprises of such contractors, who have no jurisdiction over the areas of business they claim and deal on, are confirmed not to be registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and probably do not possess a valid Tax Identification Number (TIN) from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) with which many transactions in the country particularly with government agencies depend on.
Our sources also lamented that NIMR in its close to 100 years of its existence has never been moribund but now, wondering how and why an uncompleted E-library building without windows and doors not to mention electrical fittings, furniture etc claimed to have been constructed with over-bloated released sum of N650million within the Institute premises for example can be listed as a government abandoned project in a report credited to Prof. Ujah in The Guardian newspaper of July 16 2015 (Page 42). The quality of materials used in the construction of the 3-storey building is reported to be questionable. The building is reported to be constructed under the auspices of the Director General and the Director of Administration while the Head of Maintenance Division who is an Engineer is alleged to be kept in the dark about the construction work.
In addition, there have been irregularities in the employment practices of Prof. Ujah’s administration with undue favour and placement of some staff in levels not commensurate with their qualifications. For example, a female staff in the Abuja Liaison Office of NIMR who has a Masters degree who ideally according to Public Service Regulations and Scheme of Service should be on CONHESS 08 is placed on CONHESS 12. In another development, one of the newly recruited staff who assumed duty in January 2015 but whose employment letters were back-dated to 2013 has been revealed to have actually graduated from a private university in Ogun State in 2012 and observed the mandatory one-year national service (NYSC) in 2013 which his employment letter bears. Our reliable source re-emphasised that this set of staff actually started work in 2015 and not 2013 as it is claimed in the employment letters in their possession. One then wonders how a Youth Corp member was employed into the mainstream public service without the NYSC discharge certificate at the time. A senior staff of the Institute recruited by the Director General into key management position is also alleged to be a pensioner of a government agency who has been reabsorbed into the mainstream civil service by the Director General. Prof. Ujah is further revealed to be strategizing and consolidating his position by appointing his people to key management positions specifically as deputies to the Directors of Finance and Accounts and Administration respectively and next to the Deputy Director of Internal Audit who are to exit the system soon.
The Director General is accused of being autocratic and despotic in his style of management of the Institute affairs. He is alleged to have turned the Senior Management Committee (SMC), the highest decision-making body of the Institute that comprised of key management staff and Directors of Research, into a mere information forum rather than a think-tank it is designed to be. Other committees such as that on Appointment and Promotion have been rendered ineffective. The fraudulent employment of about 70 workers carried out by the Director Ggeneral and the Director of Administration in January 2015 for example was done without the involvement of the SMC and the Appointment and Promotion Committee.
A staff who was interviewed by InfoTrust but pleaded anonymity lamented the falling standard in the Institute stating that,”NIMR has never been this moribund. Since 2010 when Prof. Ujah assumed duty as the Director General, about 16 research scientists, of which 10 are Ph.D holders, have left the Institute because of his (Ujah) repressive management style. Now B.Sc holders who have qualifications not relevant to the mandate of the institution are being employed to replace those experienced and highly qualified scientists that left. Imagine having a staff with B.Sc degree in Geology for example in NIMR. It is ridiculous.”
In a vendetta move and frantic efforts to cover his tracks, the Director General and the Director of Administration have been clamping down on staff in strategic administrative and account offices they suspect to have been leaking their shoddy deals by boycotting their tables and making them redundant with no work. Prof. Ujah has recently been directing the Heads of Finance and Accounts Division and Audit Unit respectively to submit to his table the list of staff in the offices according to their state of origin and schedule of duties with the intention of reshuffling the staff of these offices and perhaps post some of them believed to be a pain the neck to the Institute’s out-stations in Kainji, Niger State and Maiduguri, Borno State.
InfoTrust attempts at getting Prof Ujah’s side has proved abortive. He did not pick his calls neither replied text messages sent to him.