Job racketeering: Poly rectors deny bribing Reps panel as c’ttee threatens legal action

Rectors of Federal Polytechnics on Thursday denied the allegations that they were asked to bribe members of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating alleged job racketeering and mismanagement of the Integrated Personnel Payment Information System (IPPIS) by Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

An online medium, PREMIUM TIMES, had, in an investigation, reported that some members of the panel asked vice-chancellors of universities and rectors of polytechnics to pay a certain amount of money as bribes into a bank account to give them a soft landing.

But Chairman of the Committee of Federal Polytechnics’ Rectors, Engr Yahaya Mohammed, said the rectors did not interface with any member of the panel.

Mohammed, who spoke on behalf of the polytechnic rectors who were present at the resumed hearing of the investigative hearing, also denied that they were given an account number to pay bribes as alleged.

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“We are not in receipt of any account number or account name by any member of this committee. I will say under oath that we have not received any account number from any member of this committee,” Mohammed, who is also the Rector of Federal Polytechnic, Kaura Namoda, Zamfara State, said when asked to speak on the allegations of bribery and extortion levied against members of the committee.

The chairman of the ad hoc committee, Yusuf Adamu Gagdi, said he has written the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate the account number allegedly released for the payments of bribes as reported.

Gagdi also threatened that the committee would take legal action against the online medium over the publication, which he said was to “blackmail and discredit” the committee.