Beware Of How You Expose Corrupt Acts, For You Might Lose Your Job Instead.....! How Buhari's Government Is Fighting Corruption, Sacks An Assistant Director For Exposing $229,000 Fraud!

As Nigerian government placed incentives for whistleblowing as a means of fighting corruption in the country, top government officials have slapped the government policy by terminating the career of an assistant director, who raised the alarm of fraud in the sum of $229,000 and N800,000.

The monies were allegedly diverted by key officials in the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, an agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The whistleblower, Ntia Thompson, an assistant director with the Directorate for Technical Cooperation in Africa, who blew the lid in the fraud that embarrassed the key masterminds, was initially suspended from work on December 19, 2016 and was finally dismissed from service on February 7, 2017.

According to a public notice, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Khadija Bukar Abba Ibrahim, who supervises the DTCA, approved the compulsory retirement of Ntia from work with immediate effect.

Although it was not clear as at last night if the letter had been served on the sacked director, a copy of the notice of his dismissal had been posted on the DTCA public notice board.

The sack letter signed by Sanda S. Isah, Head of Administration Department in DTCA and addressed to all staff, said, “ I am directed to inform you that following the recommendations of the Senior Staff Appointment Promotion and Disciplinary Committee on Acts of Serious Misconduct against Mr. Ntia U. Thompson, the Honourable Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chairman Presidential Inter-Ministerial Committee on the DTCA, has approved the Compulsory Retirement of Mr. Ntia U. Thompson from the services of the DTCA with effect from 7th February 2017.

“In view of the above, Mr. Ntia U Thompson ceased to be a staff of the DTCA with effect from 7th February 2017.

“All members of staff and the general public are hereby advised to take note”. The letter was signed and placed on the public notice of the DTCA on Friday with a handwritten instruction ‘Please Read’.

However, competent staff within the agency, who believe that the money in question was actually diverted wonder why both the police and the anti-graft agency whose attention was drawn to the fraud, turned a blind eye to the inimical act and allowed the suspects to go scot-free and boldly unleash their fangs on the victim.

Competent senior officials in the DTCA provided documents to allege some of the 14-member panel raised by the government to probe the allegations of breaching service rules levelled against the whistleblower could have been compromised.

The officials provided a list of 11 new senior staff hurriedly employed by the leadership of the DTCA without advertisement or declaration of vacancies by the directorate in order to silence the panellists and get them to ease out the whistleblower from the establishment.

The document shows that the 11 ‘new staff’ were all employed as either Administrative Officer or Accounts Officer on the same date of December 30, 2016, just a day to the end of the year.

The officials confirmed that the new employees are either direct children or relatives of the panel members who were supposed to interview Mr. Thompson and write a report based on the civil service regulations and decide on whether he should be commended for the act of patriotism which he showed by reporting the diversion of the money in question. With Vanguardngr.com