Following the arrest of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a former member of the Governing Council of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Dr. Saminu Dagari has called on the anti-corruption agency to pick up the university’s Vice Chancellor next.
Spokesman of EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, had confirmed the arrest of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, on Monday over alleged fraud to the tune of N80 billion. Following his arrest, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, on Wednesday suspended Idris indefinitely.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Dr. Dagari called for the arrest of Vice Chancellor of UNILAG, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe over alleged corrupt acts.
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In an press release he issued last week, made available to The Lagos Times, Dr. Muhammad Saminu Dagari, had given the Federal Ministry of Education, the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) hard knocks, accusing them of doing nothing to fight corruption in universities.
Dagari, who was a nominee of the Federal Government while serving on UNILAG Governing Council, had further accused the Federal Ministry of Education, NUC and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) of actually aiding stealing of meagre allocation to Education in the National Budget.
In the said statement of last week, entitled “CORRUPTION: University of Lagos is a case in point”, the university don who is with the Federal University, Gashua had alleged that: “(i)From January to September, 2019, Government released a sum of N7,530,428,535.69 for payment of salaries via the GIFMIS Platform. Out of this, only N4,339,000,277.09 was utilised. The surplus of N3,191,428,258.60 was stolen.
“(ii) The Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was terribly basterdised. From January to September, 2019, the amount realised from students registration fees (Undergraduate & Postgraduate) was N2,579,901,000. The Bursar dubiously reported to Council & the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, N410,679,250 as the amount collected as students registration fees. A sum of N2,169,221,750 was stolen.
“The Minister & the Perm Sec of the Ministry of Education as well as the Accountant General of the Federation are fully aware of this scandal. Yet, nothing was done to UNILAG Management.
“(iii) Anybody who has been to UNILAG recently might have seen an abandoned Library project awarded at a cost of N2,000,000,000 (2 billion Naira).
“This is the Government, ASUU is fighting over funding and improved conditions of service,forgetting that they’ve a bigger fight at their various campuses.
“Why is Government reluctant to release White Paper on the reports of the Visitation Panels to Federal Universities? Of course, it is because of the scandals contained in the various reports.”
In the latest press statement issued on Tuesday, Dr. Dagari cited a news report to the effect that ASUU had uncovered multibillion Naira commodity market, other properties owned by the arrested and suspended Accountant-General.
He then wondered why ASUU had been mute on the alleged corruption scandal of Prof. Ogundipe but could expose that of the Accountant-General of the Federation, lamenting the double standard.
“Whatever it is, parties to this crisis (corruption in UNILAG) will not relent. We’ll continue to pursue this case until justice is done”, he added.
Dr. Dagari further stated that “In a Press Release on Saturday 15th August, 2020, a retired Professor of Obstetrics and Gyneacology and Member UNILAG Governing Council (2017 to 2019), Oye-Adeniran revealed that UNILAG was a citadel of corruption and impunity under Prof. Ogundipe.
“Oye-Adeniran then submitted a petition to the EFCC office in Lagos on 25th August, 2020. When nothing happened after a year, he wrote a complaint to President Buhari through his Chief of Staff, Prof. Gambari on the attitude of EFCC on UNILAG corruption.
“We were reliably informed that Prof. Ogundipe has influential Godfathers and Godmothers in Government who vowed to protect him at all cost from the wrath of the law. These people will not be in power forever.
“The Babalakin-led Governing Council was vindicated by the Report of the General Agwai Visitation Panel to the University of Lagos on the level of corruption in UNILAG.”
The Federal University, Gashua, Yobe State don, also quoted excerpts of the report of the Agwai Visitation Panel, as published by THISDAY newspaper, to back up his argument.
Below are part of the excerpts quoted:
EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE GENERAL AGWAI VISITATION PANEL TO UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS
The visitation panel set up by Visitor to the University of Lagos (UNILAG), President Muhammed Buhari, submitted it’s report. Although yet to be officially released, THISDAY was able to obtain a copy of the 241-page report from the Federal Ministry of Education.
The report examined the affairs of the university and issues that led to the crisis and concluded that all the allegations made by the then Dr. Wale Babalakin-led Governing Council against Ogundipe were *substantiated by the panel, contrary to the position held by the special panel, which was set up then after the removal of the VC.
However, the visitation panel, in its final report, revealed that Ogundipe could not provide any defence for his actions. It alleged that the UNILAG VC was involved in splitting of contracts.
According to the panel, “The explanations given were mere justifications to the breached contract tender processes that resulted in contract splitting, not out of ignorance of the requirements of the rules and regulations that have been substantively enacted.”
The report highlighted many contracts that were illegally awarded by the Ogundipe-led management.* *It alleged that in violation of the Procurement Act, the management of UNILAG under Ogundipe regularly diverted, by way of virement the sum of N1.800 billion from the university’s recurrent expenditure to fund award of contracts, which were clearly illegal.
The visitation panel stated, “The university operates a structured budget processing system.The budget process seems complete except that a bulk allocation of funds was made to each department, and they are each at liberty to allocate amount available as they deem fit.This is totally inconsistent with the structured process and needs to be revisited.
The format of the periodic budget performance report presented to the Governing Council has major deficiencies. It lacks the critical aspect of good management information, performance review criteria and presentation. There is no section for the statement of financial positions that could have disclosed the fixed asset and all financial assets and liabilities of the university.
It is half-baked reporting template used over the years for the quarterly financial reporting, however, it might not have been intentionally generated with the view towards hiding useful financial information from the Governing Council and the management of the university.
We also noticed some inconsistency between the figures of the approved budget and that of the budget performance report. It points to the fact that subordinates are not being supervised as required. With a staff strength of 120, such errors should not be continuous and mistakes are not expected from the Bursary Department.
The budget performance reports concentrated on the monetary aspect of operations and also failed to determine the variance between the budget and the actual performance of each critical areas of the university, which include direct teaching, research and human resource development.”
According to the panel findings, even the monthly donation of N500,000 to the Law Faculty by Babalakin for the purchase of law reports was diverted by the university management or the Faculty of Law by paying the sum into an unofficial account.This enabled the indicted officers to spend the money in a manner not authorised by the donor, it stated.
The visitation panel came to the conclusion that the Bursary of the University was characterised by concealment, fraud, misappropriation, misrepresentation, and incompetence.
Furthermore, the report revealed that the management under Ogundipe concealed the accounts of the university for over three years from the Governing Council, which under Section 7 of the University of Lagos Act, was statutorily conferred with the power of superintendence of the accounts of the university.
It said it was the insistence of the Governing Council to know the accounts of the university that led to the commissioning of the Professor Omolehinwa Committee, which unravelled the true state of affairs of the university.
The decision arose from the findings of the Chairman of Council that the budget estimates submitted to the National Assembly and the one presented to the Finance and General-Purpose Committee was at variance and irreconcilable,” it stated.
*The report also revealed that there were 29 income-generating units in the university, but for several years only 10 of these companies were reported in the books of UNILAG.The others were concealed and whatever these companies generated were not accounted for.
*The panel also found that the books of the university were so poorly prepared and full of non-disclosures that it did not represent the true state of affairs of the university.
*The panel report revealed that the Bursar was not able to produce the ledger of the university for the entire duration of the panel sitting, even though they had requested same from the bursar at several times.
Similarly, the Bursar was not even able to produce an approved budget for 2020, implying that all the expenditure made for the said 2020 were extra-budgetary payments.
In addition, the visitation panel said, “The Bursar was found to be very incompetent and did not demonstrate any capacity to handle the portfolio. The Vice Chancellor and the Bursar regularly diverted money of the university as shown in the consistent diversion of about N1.8 billion from recurrent expenditure to capital expenditure without approval.
Virements of a total sum of N1, 858,458,137 were consistently made from recurrent votes to finance capital projects during the period under review. This is a major breach in budgetary control and has been consistent year to year.
“The practice is totally out of place in the budgetary system of financing operations, it results in killing activities that could have qualitative benefits in favour of capital projects that were not initially budgeted and consequently culminating in the sinking of scarce resources over a long period of time with low financial returns.”
