By Ikenna Asomba

The reaction by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), that it was already investigating the petition of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), over alleged financial impropriety and abuse of office by the Rector, Yaba College of Technology, YABATECH, Lagos, Dr. Margaret Ladipo, caused a mild drama at the Lagos office of the anti-corruption agency, last Tuesday.

YABATECH main gate

Members of the civil society organisation, led by its President, Igho Akeregha, who protested at the EFCC office, along Awolowo Way, Ikoyi, at about 11.30am, said they were protesting to remind the agency of the urgent need to conduct a detailed impartial investigation into alleged mismanagement of public funds, abuse of office and sundry acts of corruption levelled against YABATECH Rector, by some senior staff of the institution.

Akeregha, whose members initially met stiff resistance at the commission’s main gate by security operatives manning the gate, noted that despite writing to the EFCC in 2014 and again in June 2015, the anti-corruption agency was allegedly foot-dragging in inviting the institution’s management for interrogations.

A mild drama, however occurred when two senior officials of the EFCC Media and Publicity department, Lagos office, later came out to address CLO members, as there was argument over the passivity of the EFCC in probing the matter, following several letters of petition sent by the CLO.

Petition and response

Akeregha said: “We are here to meet with officials of the EFCC to sought reasons why a petition we wrote since 2014, to draw the attention of the Commission to the alleged fraud and abuse of office by the Rector, Yaba College of Technology. Since the Commission has not responded to any of our two petition letters, we decided to take the bull by the horn to come here with some of our members.”

However, in a swift response, an official of the Media and Publicity department of the EFCC Lagos, who pleaded anonymity said: “No, you are missing it. The EFCC is aware of your petition letters and we have been on it. To show that we acknowledged your letters, that was why they bore our official stamp, when you sent them to our office. That is how we operate, when we get petitions from concerned Nigerians.

“The only problem we have is communication lacuna. Our method of handling civil matter is different from the way we handle matters of financial impropriety. I can assure you that we have invited the Rector for interrogations. So, we need not make noise over it,” the EFCC official said.

Still not satisfied with the explanation of the agency, Executive Director of CLO, Comrade Ibuchukwu Ezike said: “We have lost patience with the EFCC with the way it has treated our petitions. If you say, you have been treating our petitions, why have we not heard that the Rector of YABATECH had been invited? If the EFCC says it needs not make noise over its operations concerning our petition, why did we hear about the invitation of the wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki, and other recent cases.”

Meanwhile, a petition dated August 4, 2015, signed by Igho Akeregha and Ibuchukwu Ezike and made available to Vanguard read in part: “In 2015, the National President of the CLO, Igho Akeregha sent a reminder and additional grounds to investigate the Rector to the ICPC, EFCC and Federal Ministry of Education. This action followed series of media publications highlighting series of incidents of mismanagement of public funds, abuse of office and sundry acts of official corruption against the Rector and management of YABATECH, yet the EFCC and Ministry of Education, remained in slumber for inexplicable reasons.”

The CLO alleged that issues against the Rector are: “exceeding approval limits; late and non retirement of estacodes allowances collected for foreign trips but which were not made; ownership and control of limited liability company while still retaining her position as Rector; award and execution of contracts through selective tendering in clear breach of extant circulars prescribing competitive tendering samples such as Retreat contract to Jack Kay Hotels Limited for N11.3million in December 2013, Convocation contracts to Mallala Animation for over N6 million in October 2013, bloated contract for repair of Generators by Commint Nig. Limited in May 2010 and questionable purchase of Generator by Commint Nig. Limited in March 2010.”

Security vote

Others are “N60 million security vote payable to the Rector, Dr. (Mrs) Ladipo personally through her account and excessive and illegal allowances to Council members to exonerate her from financial mismanagement which they did.”

Meanwhile, at the time of filing this report, efforts to speak to the institution’s Rector. Dr. Ladipo was futile, as her phone was switched-off. Also, Vanguard made efforts to speak to the institution’s spokesperson, Charles Oni, but he failed to pick calls made to his phone, neither did he respond to text message sent to his phone.

However, in a related development, Vanguard gathered that the Head, EFCC Lagos office, Iliyasu Kwarbai, met with officials of the CLO, reiterating that the commission was not sleeping over the matter.