By Ray Umukoro
A major highlight of the recent public presentation of Nigeria Heroes and Sheroes, Diary of a Journalist of Courage, a book authored by Ken Ugbechie, a celebrated Nigerian journalist and columnist, was the presentation of merit awards to some Nigerians.
The book is a compendium of the good, the bad and dark underbelly of the nation, but it gravitated heavily on the side of development journalism. It curated in breezy language, the development landmarks of some Nigerians and corporates. But it also documented with clarity the failures and odious imprints of some public officials. The book simply told the Nigerian story from a Nigerian perspective; a genuine and audacious front-row account by the author.
This treatise is not so much about the 644-page book as it is about the merit awards.
The cast of awardees was a rich mix of individuals and corporates. Nigerians who have continued to raise the bar of efficiency and cognitive leadership. One of such recipients was Barry Tariye Ndiomu, a retired Major-General and currently the Interim Administrator of Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP). Ndiomu deserves his medal as Icon of Integrity for many reasons. His award resonated positively with the audience made up of top media professionals, business people, public officers, industrialists and sundry professionals. The loud applause that greeted the announcement of his award lent credence to the appropriateness of the award and to its relevance to the nation’s economy.
Appointed on September 15, 2022 by President Muhammadu Buhari, Ndiomu’s appointment as the top man to manage PAP at the time he was so named has been hailed as a masterstroke by President Buhari. He was seen as the perfect fit for the job of pacifying the ex-agitators in the creeks of the Niger Delta. He came at a time the Amnesty Programme was drifting to nowhere with tell-tale signs of an imminent, almost inevitable, rupture in the relative peace in the region. And in barely six months, Ndiomu has demonstrated that the confidence President Buhari reposed in him was not misplaced.
For an agency that was festooned in graft and misappropriation of funds, it took Ndiomu less than three months to change the trajectory of the administration of the Programme from the path of corruption to the path of transparency and efficiency.
Before the Ndiomu era, the figures for single account was 23,000. However, after painstaking verification and cleaning up of the data, the figure was reduced to 19,510 as at March, thus saving the Programme money in hundreds of thousands of naira monthly. Not just that, some names appeared in duplicates/triplicates; while some names were listed on both single/bulk payment list. It was discovered that delegates on in-training receiving ₦70,000 monthly were also on the list other than theirs. Using an audit verification through BVN check, a huge scam was uncovered. A good 513 delegates had 1,371 accounts fraudulently linked to their BVNs. Obviously, these were ghost accounts and it points to a possible collusion with external forces, the banks.
Other messy details exposed by the audit when Ndiomu assumed office were as follows: So many accounts did not have BVN linked to them. One individual was receiving stipends (N65,000 monthly) of 33 persons through fraudulent means. The forensic audit also revealed other duplicitous payment systems that turned the simple monthly payment of stipends to a feast of mindless heist.
Other scandalous details unveiled post-Ndiomu were that contracts with vendors were found to be fraudulently inflated, in some cases manipulated to steal huge cash out of the Programme. Through Ndiomu’s insistence on the adoption of global best practices in contracting, such contracts were renegotiated. The process saved about N1.5 billion for the Programme.
With more than N5.5 billion and N4.5 billion owed both formal education institutions and vocational training contractors respectively as at September 2022, the PAP balance sheet was daily reported in red, over-burdened by debt. Today, the situation has been salvaged through prudent and strategic prioritisation of payments as prescribed by Ndiomu. For the first time, matters that have direct impact on the delegates were put on the first line charge for timely consideration. Under Ndiomu, PAP resuscitated the Vocational Training Centres (VTCs).
Pronto, as part of his strategy to sustain peace in the Niger Delta region, Ndiomu initiated measures to revive, revamp and fully optimize the over N5 billion abandoned projects in a remarkable shift from the past by insisting that only quality jobs are approved and paid for to the joy of the programme beneficiaries.
Ndiomu has achieved all this and many more without the usual noise associated with developmental landmarks of public office holders. The retired but not tired General has refused to be swayed by the tide of sweltering emotion that usually afflicts public officers who are adjudged as high performers in office. He prefers that the people beat his own drum rather than be the one drumming to announce his exploits.
Ever since he set out to transform the Amnesty Programme, turning it from its previous bad ways of corruption and syndicated larceny, Ndiomu has come under a blitzkrieg of organized media lynching especially from the camp of those who masterminded and profited from the miasma and fiscal rot that ruled the roost at the Programme before his arrival. It’s a common trend in Nigeria. Those who are the promoters and progenitors of fraud in any system always resist change. Ndiomu brought change to PAP. A revolutionary change from fiscal indiscipline to probity and sound fiscal responsibility. The thieving mob orchestrated protests and sponsored wishy-washy and usually poorly scripted media articles against him. But he stood his ground, insisting that money meant for ex-agitators was paid to them, and that the concurrent trainings designed to empower them were actually administered to them. The result of his doggedness and insistence on fiscal discipline has put paid to precipitate agitations in the creeks.
The ex-agitators want jobs after their trainings. They want to be empowered just so they can become job and wealth creators and add real value to society. Ndiomu is doing that. Between October 2022 and January 2023, more than 1, 000 beneficiaries have been profiled for imminent placement in various jobs within select MDAs of government. Recent strategic engagements with organisations such as, NSCDC, NITDA, Office of the Head of Service, Nigerian Police Force (NPF), the Nigerian Navy, Ministry of Finance, as well as office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, have boosted hope for job placements for already trained ex-agitators. No fewer than 5,000 ex-agitators are projected to be employed in a new push by PAP to participate in securing oil facilities and installations.
The setting up of Micro-business Clusters and Cooperatives is another initiative to empower eligible delegates. Over one billion naira is earmarked to support delegates’ micro-business startups. With these and many more, Ndiomu has sustained peace in the usually feisty creeks. It is for this peace that Nigeria has in recent months effectively achieved over 1.67 million barrels of crude oil production per day, 130 million barrels shy of the OPEC allotted 1.8 million barrels. On account of his transformational leadership at PAP, President Buhari recently added another responsibility to the shoulders of Ndiomu, this time, as the Chairman of the Federal Government’s Special Investigative Panel on Crude Oil Theft/Losses. It’s a testament to his aura of integrity; and a justification of the Icon of Integrity Award bestowed on him by Political Economist.
Umukoro writes from Warri
