GROUP ASKS PRESIDENT BUHARI TO REVISIT CASE OF FALSIFICATION AND FORGERY AGAINST UBRBDA's BOSS

A group, Transparency International, North-east Zonal Office, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to revisit a petition against the Managing Director of the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority, Mr. Aliyu Jijjiwa, over issues that bordered on alleged falsification of documents to stay longer in office.
The group urged the authorities, to, as a matter of urgency, conduct detailed investigation on the matter with a view to taking necessary action.
Recall that a petition signed by its Zonal Country Representative of Transparency International, Mr. Ahmed Abdulrazak, a copy obtained by our correspondent, claimed that Jijjiwa allegedly falsified his initial records of employment and prolonged his tenure as MD of the authority by eight months.
It further noted that a committee was set up two months ago and had already submitted a report but no action was taken because Jijjiwa lobbied prominent politicians from Adamawa State who claimed to be personal aides of the President that kept on interfering with the outcome of the judgment.
The petitioner alleged that the managing director desperately accepted his appointment as the CEO in August, 2013 without resigning his career civil service appointment at the age of 58 years and 33 years of service.
“Aliyu Jijjiwa was born on 31/12/54 at Madagali town in Adamawa State as stated in his authentic declaration of age when employed on 30th July 1980 but he subsequently altered his Date of Birth to read 30/07/55 to conform to his 35 years of service as per civil service guidelines,” he stated.
He said this was in total violation of civil service rule, as a circular by former Head of Service, Steve Orosanye dated July 27, 2009 to all heads of federal government ministries, MDA’s, agencies, stipulates that a civil servant who accepted an offer is expected to retire after 35 years of service or 60 years of age whichever comes first.
He further said in the alternative, the employee should resign his appointment voluntarily before accepting the offer in order to enjoy uninterrupted tenure of 4 years or more.
The group recalls the matter was investigated during the meeting of the Board of Directors May 7, 2015 whereby Jijjiwa presented a letter signed by a retired Director of Human Resources from the Federal Ministry of Water Resources conveying the former Minister’s approval for him to complete his four years tenure contrary to civil service rules.
When contacted in an interview, Mr. Jijjiwa maintained that the issue raised by the group has been rested since 2013. He recalls that a committee was set up by the ministry to investigate the matter but at the end was cleared of any wrongdoing.
His words: “You see, a committee was setup from my ministry on the matter, they came and investigated. It all started that I was given an appointment in November 2013 and I put down my letter of retirement as guided by the federal government’s policy and it was accepted.
“Any issue of my date of birth or whatsoever at the moment is inconsequential because I have already retired since 2013. Once you are a retiree before taken another appointment, then the issue of date of birth is irrelevant. The documents they are holding on now that show different of dates of birth in my certificate of birth, international passport and declaration of age have already been sorted out since two years ago.
“I wondered why the issue of 2013 should be raising up again in 2015. They can go and check the records in the ministry to confirm if this issue has not been sorted out since. The record is there for them to crosscheck. I am a retired civil servant who is on a political appointment has the MD,” he averred.
However, in a new twist to the story, independent investigation further revealed that the immediate past minister of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources approved the appointment of a new Managing Director to replace Mr. Jijjiwa. However, this raised fresh controversy as the appointment of the new MD, who hails from the same Local Government Area as the Permanent Secretary, was done on May 25th 2015, barely 3 days to the expiration of the tenure of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
This, according to sources, not only amounts to addressing one anomaly with the other, it also raises serious questions of conflict of interest considering the relationship between the new appointee and the top management of the parent Ministry.
Meanwhile, it was also gathered that efforts by the Permanent Secretary to push through the recommendations of the ministry is being desperately sabotaged by Aliyu Jijjiwa's backers in the office of the Head of Service (HOS) of the federation.

Does he want to be using a walking stick to the office?