Corruption allegations against NEDC’s MD/CEO Alkali Concoction of lies’ — anti-graft group 

From Paul Orude Bauchi

The, Arewa Round Table Against Corrupt Practices ARTACP, has says allegations against the Managing Director  and Chief Executive of  the North East Development Commission NEDC Alhaji Mohammed Goni Alkali are borne out of lies , envy and mischief.

Addressing a Press Conference at Chartwell Hotel Bauchi , Chairman of ARTACP, Hon. Lawal Abdullahi and  Hon. Shaaban Ibrahim Secretary of the group said the allegations against Goni were intended to misinform the public and distract the Board.

“These false allegations against the managing Director NEDC are being perpetrated as a ploy to misinform the public in a bid to distract the Board or to cause confusiion due to envy and mischief,” the Chairman states.

“The story alleges that Alkali’s son is a major contractor in NEDC , he gave approval and withdrrew N5 billion to purchase military vehicles without consultations with board members, and allegations of award of fictitious contract among others,”.he stated.

.”All these mischievous allegations and blatant lies and nothing can be farther from the truth. 

“Even though we don’t want to join issues with anybody we are, therefore, constrained to respond to the false story about an imaginary allegations of corruption against Alkali.

 “We urge members of the public to disregard the story which is obviously a mischievous concoction of lies designed to sow seeds of discord among members of the Board who are united in their resolve to make a difference in the North Eastern State”.

The group described the naysayers as enemies of the North East making false allegations to distract Alkali from consolidating on the good work he has started by repositioning the region through execution of physical and non physical laudable projects and different interventions to bring succour to the people of the north east region. 

They said the unwarranted attack on Alkali and the false threat by the faceless group was mischievous and based on hatred, malice, envy and ignorance, and the people behind the statement were feigning ignorance on how the commission operate in order to sway unsuspecting public to their ploy to cause a crisis.

 “First of all, we wish to appreciate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Vice President Kashim.Shettima for the reappointment of the board which was long in coming. 

“We are indeed proud of Alkali; he has a humble political pedigree, sagacity, and versatility in all fields of human endeavour. 

“We outrightly condemn the sponsors of the false and imaginary write up, we are sad that these self-centered faceless group did not see anything good in the physical of hundreds of developmental projects being executed by Alkali which was spread a cross the 112 local government areas of six states in the region , but chose to malign and cast aspersions on the managing director its a shame and unfortunate”

 “Consequently, we urge relevant respected citizens to ignore all forms of unholy antagonism against Alkali, we called on the security agencies to unravel this faceless group trying to sow a seed of discord in the country and to bring them to justice,” 

They said no son of Alkali is a contractor In NEDC or anywhere in Nigeria and there is no fictitious or abandoned projects awarded by the Northeast Development Commission NEDC in the region

Reacting to the allegations published by some media outlets  insinuating that there are funds misappropriations in NEDC, the Chairman of the group lawal said the allegations are nothing but mischief paddling and falsehood.

“After a thorough investigations our findings revealed that no Alkali’s  son is a contractor in NEDC and Alkali has no Houses in Abuja or Kaduna as alleged.

“The NEDC like all government agencies has a limit on the amount of money approved for project where it reaches N5 billion only the Federal Executive Council approves such kind money for the projects not Alkali” .

“All the projects awarded by the commission  either has reached 60 to 80 percent of completion  or ,the contractors are making final arrangement to commence the project.

It seems the petitioners so not know the projects that they are talking about or they don’t know that the commission was created by law and there are laws guiding their operations including procurement laws which from our findings Alkali followed strictly”

The secretary of the group Honourable Sha’aban said “all the allegatioons are fiction ,malicious and imaginations of the petitions to achieve their selfish aim of black mailing the commission through cheap publicity.

“The writers were ignorant on how government agencies operates , they don’t know that all government agencies ministries and department have edicts that guide their establishment, including the mandate giving to them and clear guidelines on how they operate and they don’t know rules and regulations guiding their activities, and operations, they have the appropriate place to report all their activities, not to the unidentified agencies, but If they can walk on to the commission and seek to know the information about the project they will know the position of everything once they agree to listen to them” .

“Let the petitioners allow NEDC to develop the region. It is unfortunate some people want to bring the commission down with false claims and false accusations and these people are not from the region even from their names,”