REA Boss in Fresh N1.5bn Scandal

A fresh scandal has reared head at the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), as the Managing Director, Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad, is again embroiled in a N1.5 billion staff training scam.

Recent discovery revealed that lump sum was siphoned from the agency’s purse in questionable manner, with fraction of it disbursed to some staff for a phantom staff training exercise

It will be recalled that in recent past, Ahmad was a subject of scandals bordering on having 37 bank accounts linked to his Biometric Verification Number with discrepancies in his account names and dates of birth.

The height of it was that two of those accounts as his mother’s name, a Director in National Board for Technical Education, Bilikisu Salihijo Ahmad as the account name.

The 38-year-old is also facing prosecution for alleged money laundering and breach of public procurement act at the instance of Donnington Nigeria Limited.

The latter levelled the charges at him, a company linked to him, Velocity Logistics and four other directors and their own companies in respect of Cargo Tracking Note contract of the federal government.

This time, the REA boss is accused of pulling two other fraudulent stunts.

The accusations are thrown at him by Centre Against Injustice and Domestic Violence (CAIDOV) via a petition to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences, Senate President, Speaker, Department of State Services and several others.

Signed by its Executive Director, Gbenga Soloki, and dated July 23, 2023, in it, CAIDOV also indicted the agency’s Executive Director, Technical Service, Engr. Barka Sajor and Director of Fund, Abubakar Sambo, accusing both of being complicit in a fake staff training programme and using eight staff in account department to perpetrate fraud to the tune of N1.5bn.

The group said recently about 200 staff in REA had their bank accounts credited with sums of money between N500,000 and N600,000 for a purported training that never took place.

It allegd that those who received the strange bank credit alert in June were told by management to assume the money, drawn from fund meant for capital project, was for training programme they did not attend.

“We have proof that the said training is an invention framed to siphon money by REA leadership from the agency’s coffer.

“The fake training followed a trend of events at REA in June, designed to clean out remaining allocated funds in the agency’s treasury, that by law should have been returned to the federal government.

“It is also to our knowledge that Braintask Value Resources Limited and Cess Assist Resources Limited mentioned in the ruse as resource firms for the fake training to perpetrate the heist were paid a total sum of N280m for doing nothing.

“Airan Construction & Supplies and Tungsten Project Nigeria Limited were also used in the June’s scams with N24.4m and N6.1m paid into their respective accounts.

“It’s pertinent to add that a large chunk of the said money would end up in the pockets of those in charge of REA, and the aforesaid firms were just conduits used to perpetrate those frauds.

“Our findings also revealed that the perpetrator(s) claimed Braintask Value Resources Limited and Cess Assist Resources Limited received N1.5m per staff member for the fabricated training on paper, whereas not more than N600,000 was paid to each staff member.

“This warranted the conclusion that the country lost not less than N300m under false pretenses to corrupt government officials in REA in June.

“We may as well mention, that our investigation revealed that Braintask Value and Cess Assist many times channeled the shares of those who made the fraud possible through the bank account of one Ochola Ben Eimoga,” the report read.

The petitioner added that another N1.2bn also ended up in REA’s hierarchies’ private pockets between March and same June in under-the-table deals, with account staff at the agency’s headquarters as conduits.

It declared that under questionable circumstances over N1.2bn were paid into the bank accounts of eight staff in the agency’s account department, with the narrations for the payments bordering on project supervisions and others that fall outside the job roles of the temporary recipients.

“To serve fraudulent purpose, the account officials namely: Asuni Adejoke Aminat, Musa Karaye, Ogunjobi Folorunsho, Okoli Henrietta, Pada Emmanuel Titus, Shehu Abdullahi Laure, Usman Kwakwa Ahmed, and Yekeen Bola Nurudeen became conduits of Ahmad, Sajor and Sambo through whose bank accounts the monies were laundered.

“This particular fraudulent scheme has Sajor at the centre as the narrations for the monies transferred to those staff’s personal accounts by the agency have to do with responsibilities his department, Technical Service, are charged with.

“The modus operandi adopted was to transfer various sums to the said staff’s bank accounts under surprising pretext, who in turn would forward the loots to the appropriate quarters.
In most cases, to the account of above-mentioned Usman Kwakwa Ahmed.

“The transaction tracks were usually covered by paying less than N5m at a time to each of those aforementioned persons’ accounts so as not to draw suspicions.

“For instance, on March 23rd, N4m and N2.3m were paid differently into Asuni Adejoke Aminat’s GTBank account, while on the 29th of the same month, the same account received N2.5m, N2m and N1.1m in different tranches.

“Totally, over N202m was paid into Asuni’s account, with N126m, N212.9m, N211.3m, N249.8m and N215.9m laundered through the bank accounts of Karaye(First Bank), Henrietta(Diamond), Titus(FirstBank), Laure(GTB) and Ahmed(GTB & Zenith) respectively,” the group narrated.

Investigation by this medium revealed that the trajectory of the money trail from other seven staff’s accounts to their colleague, Usman Kwakwa Ahmed’s accounts with Zenith( 2083588954) or GTBank(1003477985) respectively took further movement.

According to bank records, Kwakwa in turn, split the loots into the accounts of Director of Fund with Zenith, account number: 2083588954, that of one Adudu Yusuf Mohammed with FCMB( 3221509018) or
Dan mama Mohammed’s First Bank account.

“It’s evident that the Director of Fund is the one that recruited Adudu and Dan Mama because they paid most of those booty routed through them into Sambo’s account. In fact there are instances Asuni Adejoke Aminat and Kwakwa paid directly into his account,” impeccable sources narrated.

It was further gathered the scandals that befriended the REA MD in recent time rendered him to tap into his powerful contacts in order to avoid prosecution and sack.

“He met with the Vice-President Kashim Shettima, and National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.

“His meeting with Ribadu was arranged by Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman who is one of his backers.

“The others include, Nasir El-Rufai, and he has been grinning from ear to ear over the former Kaduna governor’s nomination as Minister claiming his job is secured as the Power Ministry would be assigned to El-Rufai,” it was further said.

Meanwhile, CAIDOV’s petition has led Ahmad into deodorizing the training fraud as some staff members in a memo dated July 31, 2023 were ordered to proceed to Kaduna for a training programme they got money for a month ago and was not meant to take place until the fraud became public knowledge through media reports.

“Following media report of the petition, REA leadership in order to justify the false training and the loot, wrote some of the staff members in a letter dated July 31, 2023 to proceed to Kaduna State for a training.

“At any rate, the training contract awarded Braintask Value Resources Limited and Cess Assist Resources Limited fall short of procurement law on many grounds. There is no Certificate of No Objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement with regard the contract, while the contract sums, N139m each to Braintask Value Resources and Cess Assist Resources is beyond the threshold of contract sum the law allows the agency’s leadership to award, which is just N9m.

“The N139m contract awarded each of the firms is even above what the procurement law permits Parastatal Tender Board(PTB) to award. PTB is only empowered to award contract below N99m and in that case, it is only the Ministerial Tender Board that is qualified to approve the contract,” this medium was told.

“It leaves a lot to be desired that several past and present petitions to law enforcement agencies and authorities including the Permanent Secretary in the Power Ministry, Temitope Fashedemi against Ahmad have been exercise in futility as the REA boss was never made to answer the charges” sources added.