Nigerian lawmakers probing job racketeering in government agencies are allegedly extorting money from the agencies

Nigerian lawmakers probing job racketeering in government agencies are allegedly extorting money from the agencies

The committee of the House of Representatives, which initially gained public support for its anti-corruption stance have been fingered in a report by Premium Times, where they've been accused of intimidating agency heads into paying bribes to avoid public disgrace and indictment.

According to the report, on Tuesday, August 15, some committee members met with heads of the nation’s federally-owned universities – 51 vice-chancellors – and afterwards secretly negotiated two million naira bribe from each of them to save themselves from public humiliation and eventual indictment.

During the negotiation with the leadership of the Committee of Vice Chancellors, representatives of the committee demanded three million naira from each institution. The professors protested, saying their institutions were poorly funded and that it would be difficult to raise the bribe money.

The committee members then shifted ground, reducing the bribe payment to two million naira each but warning of dire consequences for anyone who failed to pay. The vice-chancellors were then given Account Number 5400495458, domiciled in Providus Bank, to pay into. The lawmakers even instructed the vice-chancellors to “clearly indicate the name of the institution in the payment invoice”

The committee members also held separate meetings with rectors of the 35 federally-owned polytechnics and provosts of the 27 federally-owned colleges of education. Three million naira bribe was then demanded from each of them.

The officials were given a deadline of Thursday, 24 August, to pay or be ready to incur the wrath of the entire House of Representatives, not only in the job racketeering case but in other matters as well.

We were able to determine that several agency heads, panicked by the threats of the lawmakers, have since paid the bribes.

From the tertiary institutions alone, over N267 million is estimated to have been collected by the panel in illicit payments. And with the scope of the committee now expanded to cover the federal government’s almost 1,500 MDAs and corporations, the committee may be on its way to extorting billions from the nation’s federal institutions.

Our investigation found that one of the bank accounts into which the bribe payments are being made belongs to a certain Ama Business Solutions, a company fronting for the committee as a consultant. The company, with registration number 3156889, was incorporated on 12 August 2020 to engage in the business of general contract and merchandising. Company documents gave the firm’s principal place of business as Plot 2249, Zone 4 Plaza, Constantine Street, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja.

AMA Business Solution has two directors – Abubakar Lawal Sambo (44) and Abdulrahman Lawal Sambo (48). Both men, who appear to be brothers, claim to be businessmen, according to their corporate filings.

But the older of the brothers, Abdulrahman Sambo, was also profiled as having served as a senior legislative aide to former Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila between 2019 and 2023. That meant he served as director of a private enterprise while being a public servant, a violation of Nigeria’s Code of Conduct law.

His profile also claims he served in the 2019 APC presidential campaign council and sits on the Board of Chrysalis Youth Foundation, of which Olawale Edun, the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, is chairperson.

Chairperson of the committee, Mr Gagdi, denied demanding or receiving money from heads of agencies, including heads of tertiary institutions and vowed to resist any attempt to discredit his committee.

He confirmed that there were indeed meetings with heads of tertiary education institutions but that the parley was held in the open and that no money was demanded or received from the lecturers during the session.