Six federal commissioners at the Code of Conduct Bureau, (CCB), have petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing the Bureau’s chairman, Muhammad Isah, of financial misconduct, abuse of power, and serial breach of procedures.
A copy of the petition, dated 29 August, was signed by six members of the bureau’s board – Emmanuel Attah, Samuel Ogundare, Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, Olayinka Balogun, and Ben Umeano. It was also gathered that the petitioners sent a similar petition to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Patrick Akinyelure, and his House of Representatives counterpart, Ossa Ossai.
The petitioners, however, called for President Buhari’s intervention, accusing Isah of “deliberately derailing the wheel of progress in actualising the aims and objectives of Mr. President in the fight against corruption.” “Sir, we humbly implore you to intervene in this matter to save the Bureau from total collapse”, they added.
The CCB is meant to be a frontline anti-corruption agency – it is the only of such bodies, specially established by the Nigerian Constitution, saddled with the responsibility of enforcing the code of conduct for public officers, which includes receiving and maintaining the records of assets declarations of public officers.
The body also investigates such asset declarations and prosecutes violators at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) However, the CCB is generally believed to have underperformed, a fact, its board members admitted in their petition to Buhari, but blamed it on Isah’s handling of the affairs of the organisation.
Among the various allegations including serial violations of the organisation’s Standard Operating Procedure levelled against Isah, the commissioners accused him of diversion of funds and failure to account for staff’s cooperative contributions. The petitioners also said about N60 million staff cooperative contributions cannot be accounted for by Isah. They also accused the CCB Chairman of abuse of power by serially breaching the operating procedure of the Bureau.
According to the petitioners, Isah has been administering the affairs of the Bureau solely in breach of the standard operating procedure, which they argued is backed by section 160 of the Nigerian Constitution.
Isah, a professor of Law, in an interview vehemently denied the allegations.
