The Coalition for Transparency in Nigeria (CTN) has knocked the People Advocacy for Transparency and Accountability (PATAI) and Al-Mushaid Initiative for Transparency and Accountability (AITA) for raising a false alarm on corrupt practices within the leadership of the North East Development Commission (NEDC).
Recall that PATAI and AITA recently accused the leadership of the NEDC of mismanaging N146.19 billion, and threatened to report the commission to the anti-graft agency.
But the CTN at a press conference held in Abuja dismissed the allegations of the CSOs as “false and baseless”.
CTN Executive Director, Dr Cecilia Ikechukwu, who addressed the news conference, said the anti-corruption coalition decided on conducting routine due diligence before commending the two organisations for uncovering the allegations.
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She explained that the things that the coalition found out about “the entire matter” are, however, “saddening.”
The coalition said the fact of the matter was that “in August 2020, the Senate Committee on Special Duties after a three-day oversight function to appraise the performance of the NEDC commended the Commission for its ‘outstanding performance’ in the area of humanitarian intervention.
“The Chairman of Senate Committee on Special Duties, Senator Yusuf Yusuf, who led the delegation on the oversight visit gave the commendation. Please, note that the Senate has a Committee on Public Accounts, which would have flagged if anything was amiss in the finances of NEDC.
“In June 2022, a Coalition of Gombe Youths and Elders Progressive Forum (CGYEPF) commended NEDC for its laudable intervention initiatives in the North-East sub-region. This Coalition praised the Commission for its various projects in the region. They made their position known in a statement entitled “Gombe Elders and Youths are Happy with NEDC successes in the region,” signed by the coalition’s National Chairman, Alhaji Salihu Magaji. These are citizens that benefitted from the projects it implemented so we wonder where PATAI and AITA are sourcing their own facts from.”
The coalition urged the leadership of NEDC to “disregard the ultimatum handed in by PATAI and AITA to focus on their mandate of returning the northeast to the commercial powerhouse it was before terrorism disrupted lives there.”
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