From.Ahmad SAKA, Bauchi
The, Arewa Round Table against currupt practices ARTACP, has tackled what it called concoction of blatant lies, raising false alarm on corrupt practices within the leadership of the North East Development Commission (NEDC).
The group explained that All allegations against the Managing Director North East Development Commission NEDC are concoction of lies , envy and mischievious.
Recently civil society organization, Renewed Hope Apostles Against Corruption, has called for the removal of the managing director of the North East Development Commission (NEDC), Mr Mohammed Alkali, over acts of alleged corruption, nepotism, and highhandedness.
The group allegedly cited flagrant abuse of procurement processes and contract inflation, among a host of other infractions committed by Mohammed Goni Alkali, the managing director of the NEDC.
They alleged that ” what has been perpetuated at the NEDC is mind-boggling. It is an era of stealing by proxy. How can you explain a situation where the son of the managing director is the number one contractor? He does whatever he wants, and the big deals at the commission are only executed by him.””
In a swift reaction by The, Hon. Lawal Abdullahi chairman and. Hon. Shaaban Ibrahim Secretary. Arewa Round Table against currupt practices ARTACP
When they Addressed a Press Conference at chart well Hotel in Bauchi , they said, “this falsehood allegations against the managing Director NEDC is being perpetrated is an indication of a ploy to misinform the public in a bid to distract the Board or to cause confusion due to envy and mischief.
“All these mischievious allegations and blatant lies was Nothing can be farther from the truth. Even though we dont want to join issues with anybody We are, therefore, constrained to respond to the false story about an imaginary allegations of curruption against Alkali.”
“We urge members of the public to disregard the story which is obviously a mischievous concoction of lies designed to sow seeds of discord among members of the Board who are united in their resolve to make a difference in the North Eastern State”.
The group described the naysayers as enemies of North East making false allegations to distract Alkali from consolidating on the good work, he has started by repositioning the region ? Changing the narratives through execution of physical and non physical laudable projects and different interventions to bring succour to the people of the north east region.
Lawal said the unwarranted attack on Alkali and the false threat by the faceless group was mischievous and based on hatred, malice, envy and ignorance.
He said the people behind the statement were feigning ignorance on how the commission operate in order to sway unsuspecting public to their ploy to cause a crisis.
“First of all, we wish to appreciate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Bice President Kashim.Shettima for the reappointment of the board which was long in coming. We are indeed proud of Alkali; he has a humble political pedigree, sagacity, and versatility in all fields of human endeavour.”
“We outrightly condemn the sponsors of the false and imaginary write up, we are sad that these self-centered faceless group did not see anything good in the physical of hundreds of developmental projects being executed by Alkali which was spread a cross the 112 local government areas of six states in the region , but chose to malign and cast aspersions on the managing director its a shame and unfortunate”
“Consequently, we urge relevant respected citizens to ignore all forms of unholy antagonism against Alkali, we called on the security agencies to unravel this faceless group trying to sow a seed of discord in the country and to bring them to justice,”
Chairman said No son of Alkali is a contractor In NEDC or anywhere in Nigeria and there is no fictitious or abandoned projects awarded by the Northeast Development Commission NEDC in the region
reacting to the allegations published by some media outlets insinuating that there are funds misappropriations in NEDC, the secretary Shaaban said the allegations are nothing but mischief paddling and falsehood.
“after a thorough investigations by our group and we investigated and visited all.the Areas mentioned by the petitioners on fact findings mission, based on our findings revealed that no Alkali son is a contractor in NEDC and Alkali still live in estate where there are over 50 Houses in that estate in Abuja, and the NEDC has alimit on the amount of money it approves for project where a money reach five billion Naira only the Federal Executive Council approves such kind of projects not Alkali” .
“All the projects awarded by the commission either has reached 60 to 80 percent of completion or ,the contractors are making final arragement to commence the project.
It seems the petitioners doesn’t know the projects that they are talking about or they dont know that the commission was created by law and there arw laws guiding their operations including procurement laws which from our findings Alkali followed it strictly.
All the allegatioons are fiction ,malicious and imaginations of the petitions to achieve their selfish aim of black mailing the commission through cheap publicity” .
He said “The writers were ignorant on how government agencies operates , they don’t know that all government agencies ministries and department have edicts that guide their establishment, including the mandate giving to them and clear guidelines on how they operate and they don’t know rules and regulations guiding their activities, and operations, they have the appropriate place to report all their activities, not to the unidentified agencies, but If they can walk on to the commission and seek to know the information about the project they will know the position of everything once they agree to listen to them” .
“Let the petitioners allow NEDC to develop the region. It is unfortunate some people want to bring the commission down with false claims and false accusations and these people are not from the region even from their names,”
