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Sunday Ani
A civil activist organisation, Public Service Integrity Watch (PSIW), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack his in-law, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), Captain Junaid Abdullahi, for breach of public service rules.
The group accused Adbullahi of having committed several public finance infractions, ranging from misconduct in public office, and breach of the Federal Civil Service rules on bankruptcy and financial embarrassment, to making questionable expenditures above his statutory approval limit, without the approval of the BCDA board.
In a petition to President Buhari, the group identified one of such unapproved expenditures as the unilateral decision by Abdullahi to relocate the offices of the BCDA from Limpopo Street, Maitama, where they had operated from since inception in 2003, to a four-floor rented office complex at Jabi, belonging to a state governor at a whooping N150 million two-year rent.
PSIW contended that it was a clear case of misplacement of priorities for an agency that has an undeveloped parcel of land along Airport Road, Abuja, to have moved to Jabi to occupy a rented building.
Abdullahi was also alleged to have bought 10 Hilux vans, and a Land Cruiser Jeep, estimated at about N60 million, as well as a brand new 32-seater bus without appropriation. “These, according to the public service rules, are regarded as serious misconduct that would attract disciplinary action,” the group contended.
The PSIW Executive Chairman, a retired director in the civil service, Dr. Hassan Idris Bello, who signed the petition dated Friday, October 18, 2019, copies of which were sent to the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbanjo and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, appealed to the President to prevail on Abdullahi to step down as the head of the agency to allow for a proper investigation into the allegations against him.
