Resign Now, Senate Tells SGF Over North-East Fund

The SGF’s company, Rholavision Engineering Ltd., was indicted amongst other companies for allegedly benefiting from inflated and phantom contracts – or ones not executed at all – awarded by the PINE.

The committee found out that Global Vision was awarded over N200 million contract to clear ‘invasive plant specie’ in Yobe State at a time he was still listed as a director of the company in March 2016.

Yet, currently, Lawal is the signatory to the company’s account.

Speaking at plenary, Senator Dino Melaye said: “Babachir Lawal is a disgrace to the All Progressives Congress,” while adding, he “is exhibiting anti-Buhari tendency”.

Melaye then called for the SGF’s resignation and prosecution.

Also, Isah Misau said Lawal should resigned immediately or be suspended and be prosecuted afterwards.

According to Misau, the Buhari administration was having challenges with performance delivery “because of people like the SGF,” and urged the president to sack and ensure his prosecution to prove seriousness of his anti-corruption campaign.

“Without the prosecution of the SGF, this anti-corruption fight will go nowhere,” he said.

The Senate therefore resolved that PINE should turn in all documents pertaining to contracts it had awarded, and that all government officials, apart from Mr. Lawal, found to have contravened law in the processes of the contracts should be prosecuted.

The Senate also asked the Federal Ministry of Health to immediately deploy its personnel to the IDP camps to support the international humanitarian crisis managers and military hospitals in the north-east.

Trouble started when the House of Representatives committee investigating alleged diversion of funds and materials meant for the internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The committee uncovered the alleged use of N270 million, just to clear grass, by the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Babachir Lawal whose office oversees the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE).

It is alleged that N12 billion have so far been spent by the PINE.

The Executive Secretary of PINE, Mr Umar Gulani, claimed that the N270 million was spent on contract for the removal of “invasive plant species along river channels and simplified village irrigation scheme (phase II) in Komadugu Basin in Yobe.

Speaking on the debacle then, the House committee chairman, Hon Sani Zorro, said it was unacceptable that the SGF office “would spend such a huge amount of money on the clearing of weeds while 2.5 million internally displaced victims of terror go hungry and have no shelter and medical care.”

After the House of Reps investigation, the Senate decided to investigate the alleged misuse of N1.3 billion fund for relief materials for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the north east states.

In a motion titled “mounting humanitarian crisis in the North-East region,” sponsored by Senator Baba Kaka Bashir Garbai (APC, Borno) and 18 others, the resolved to constitute a 10-man ad hoc committee under the chairmanship of Senator Shehu Sani to investigate monies released to the initiative so far.

Senator Garbai in his lead debate on the motion, informed the Senate that about two million people could not be reached by aids and were at risk of starvation in the zone while Western diplomats believe government’s response remains a “disgrace”.

According to Garbai, the Senate moved by the dire situation in the insurgency ravaged region on November 17, 2015, raised the amount proposed by the executive in the budget for the IDPs from N6 billion to N10 billion while the Presidential Initiative on the North-East was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari about a year ago to manage the crisis, adding that the measures were yet to show “tangible result” on ground with over N5 billion already released.