Date Published: 08/16/09

UBEC Seeks “Retrospective” Due Process Certificate on N3.3bn textbooks contract

• Rumbles in SSS over Gadzama’s implication

Dr. Ahmed Modibbo

Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education (UBEC), Dr. Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed has written the Bureau for Public Procurement otherwise known as “Due Process” urging the Bureau to grant a backdated Due Process certificate to enable him award contracts totaling over N3.3 billion for the supply of textbooks before “the beginning of the school year in September, 2009.”

Modibbo had gotten the Ministerial Tenders Board of the Federal Ministry of Education to grant him a written approval dated 22 nd June, 2009 for the award the contracts totaling N3.3 billion. The approval was conveyed in a letter signed on behalf of the minister of state for education, Hajiya Aishatu Dukku, by one Mrs. J.M. Agwal.

Dukku had channeled another request by Modibbo to spend N2.5bn on six yet-t-be-ascertained “six items” in “Annex B” of his memo. Both requests were on August 5, 2009, tabled before the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for consideration, but were rejected by the council on the grounds that due process was not adhered to in the award of the contracts, as exclusively reported by Pointblanknews.com.

Indications have however emerged that Modibbo may not be willing to allow contracts worth over N5.8 billion slip through his fingers, particularly as they are believed to have been designed to fatten the purses of his cronies.

According to sources close to the UBEC boss, one of the strategies to get around the problem is to get a due process certificate “by any means.” Modibbo is said to be working glove-in-hand with a prominent official of the Bureau from the South-west (names withheld) to secure a backdated Due Process certificate for the contracts.

For a N10 million “consultancy fee”, the official was said to have persuaded Modibbo into writing the Bureau for Public Procurement to soften its hard stance and hand him a backdated Due Process Certificate.

Apparently heeding to professional advice, Modibbo on August 5, 2009 (the same day FEC rejected his memo) wrote the Due Process office. In the letter, which bore reference number UBEC/ES/PCU/154/III/510, Modibbo was profuse with apologies for not subjecting the contracts to “due process” scrutiny, but urged the bureau to overlook his “error” and “oversight” and award him a due process certificate “retrospectively.”

He penned: “The Council (FEC) meeting this afternoon has shown clearly that we ought to have brought this (the contracts) back to you for further scrutiny and issuance of a certificate to go ahead with the award,” adding, “this error is regretted, we have no reason not to have brought the matter back to you for consideration.”

Modibbo, in the letter, admitted that “it is good that the Federal Executive Council has advised that the memo be stepped down for us to complete the Due Process and obtain a certificate from your office,” but prayed the Bureau to “look at them retrospectively and consider giving us the certificate to cover the awards (of the N3.3 billion contract) especially given the fact that we would want the books available in schools at the beginning of the school year in September 2009.”

Pointblanknews.com investigations revealed that certain officials of UBEC had alerted the Due Process office on what they said was their boss’ penchant for double-speak and double standards in contracts’ awards.

They were reportedly miffed that Modibbo, who has consistently maintained that he stopped an N850 million plastic furniture contract for schools to Intermarkets on the grounds that due process was not followed, would award contracts worth nearly N6 billion or seven times the size of the Intermarkets’ contract, without a Due Process certificate. Some of the officials who spoke with Pointblanknews.com said they were waiting to see how their agency would react.

Said an official from the Due Process office: “We are waiting if our D-G would swallow Modibbo’s bait. He has boasted that everybody has a price and that any man would play ball when and if the price is right.

“Not that I don’t pity him. What sealed his (Modibbo’s) fate was a memo dated 29 th December, 2008, and signed on behalf of his supervising minister (Aishatu Dukku) by one Mrs. M.I Monye.

“The UBEC boss had awarded contracts for the supply of instructional materials for children with special needs such funny companies as Al-Mala Nig. Ltd., Binwa Press Ltd., Isani Ventures and Ginikiye Associates. He also awarded similar contracts to Triangular Communications Ltd., and Infinity Telecoms. The contracts, from our records, totaled about N190 million.

“Now, what is striking is that in July, 2009, the same Modibbo awards contracts for the supply of textbooks to the same Binwa, Al-Mala, Isani, Ginikye, Triangular and Infinity Telecoms he used in December of last year. The posers are, who are those behind these companies with funny sounding names, and what nature of business were they registered to conduct? The frequency with which they get contracts in UBEC is puzzling, the reason we had to storm FEC to insist on Due Process certificate for the contract, because we don’t want a situation where filling stations get contracts to supply textbooks.”

On the possibility of obtaining a backdated Due Process certificate, the official chuckled: “There is nothing like backdated or retrospective Due Process certificate. It is like going to re-sit your school certificate exams after graduating from a university. How did you get admitted in the first instance?”

Pointblanknews.com had had recently published how Modibbo had diverted N6 billion meant to feed indigent school children to contracts for the supply of textbooks for the children. Al-Mala, Binwa, Ginikye, Isani Ventures, Triangular Communications, and Infinity Telecoms, and a select others, beat such renown publishers as Evans and Heinemann to make Modibbo’s list of companies that won the bid for the supply of textbooks worth N3.3 billion.

The remainder of the school feeding money was then splashed on six yet-to-be-specified items, and, but for the eagle-eyed officials of the Due Process office, would have lined the pockets of some high profile government officials and the Katsina-born notorious smuggler, Alhaji Dahiru Mangal.

Meanwhile, Modibbo has come under fire for admitting aiding operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) to tap on the telephone conversations of some officials of his Commission whom he (Modibbo) suspected of sabotaging him.

Pointblanknews.com had recently reported that the SSS Director-General Mr. Afakriya Gadzama regularly compromises the Service by assigning operatives to plant incriminating substances, including alcohol and concocted security reports, on perceived enemies of his friend, Modibbo. The UBEC and SSS bosses graduated the same day in 1976 with honours degrees in History from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Top operatives in the SSS are reportedly incensed over a recent interview in The Sun newspaper, where Modibbo admitted to engaging the assistance of the SSS to bug the telephone lines of his subordinates. Most of the officers are said to be pushing for the removal of Gadzama, whom they claim has allowed his personal relationships, especially with Modibbo, conflict with the collective interest of the SSS.

This is as the UBEC boss came under fire from chairperson of the Senate Committee on Education, Senator Joy Emordi, for claiming that the senator demanded N50 million from him to “assist” her committee. Modibbo has since done a full page retraction of the controversial claim, blaming the reporter, Mr. Kenny Ashaka, of doing a hatchet on an interview he freely granted.

Pointblanknews.com had reported how Gadzama fooled President Umaru Yar’Adua by handing him a security report authored by Modibbo to nail an American businessman and some staffers of UBEC, and how the security chief often breached the code of inter-agency correspondences by personally delivering official letter to certain UBEC officials to his friend, Modibbo.

The UBEC boss, whom close associates swear has earmarked over N200 million to stave off what he said was “bad press” over the UBEC scam, had last month dispatched the Commission’s Public Relations Officer, David Apeh, to “meet” with editors of major newspapers in Lagos. Modibbo had personally handled the “meeting” with the Abuja-based editors, doling out as much as N250,000 per editor.

Sources close to UBEC leadership told Pointblanknews.com that Modibbo is however not impressed with Apeh’s performance so far, and has hired a Fulani media consultant to stem the tide of what he said were unrelenting media attacks on him.

Penultimate Sunday, Leadership on Sunday, a very influential newspaper in the North, ran what Modibbo’s associates say was a “very caustic” editorial on happenings in UBEC. The newspaper had questioned the Modibbo’s role in the crisis, and called for an independent inquiry since, in the newspaper’s opinion, several security agencies assigned the task in the past, had compromised themselves.

Said an associate: “I think the editorial by Leadership drove the nail into Modibbo’s coffin. From all indications, Apeh may be on his way out as PRO. So pissed is the ES (Executive Secretary) that he now defers to one Modibbo, who claims to be a media consultant. Among a litany of allegations, they claim that Apeh may, after-all, be more sympathetic to his Igala kinswoman, Dr. (Mrs.) Lami Amodu, whom Modibbo displaced. You know this impostor called Modibbo, apart from being Fulani, is a Muslim. Apeh, on the other hand is Igala and a Christian.

It was this consultant, who incidentally shares the same surname with Modibbo, Pointblanknews.com investigations revealed, that nudged the UBEC boss to take on his opponents “headlong”. It was this decision that culminated in the recent interview with The Sun, which has reportedly ruffled a lot of feathers in the Presidency and SSS.

Boasted Modibbo in the interview: “When I got to the office on Monday morning, I called my colleagues and said, ‘gentlemen, I have been trying to contact many of you, but your phones are not going (sic). Let us exchange our telephone numbers among ourselves (sic). If you have more than one telephone number, write it.”

Continued the UBEC boss: “I wrote my two numbers. Everybody wrote their two numbers. I didn’t tell them what I was going to do with it. Later that afternoon, I drove to the Abuja Command of the State Security Service (SSS).

“It is not only wrong but criminal for any officer to bug the telephone line of any person on the mere allegation that he is sabotaging another public officer. Except in very rare cases bordering on national security, and which must have the consent of the C-in-C, the service rarely taps on the telephone lines of individuals. This instance is even more ludicrous because the Modibbo man acted like an operative himself.

“Never in the history of the Service has its integrity come under such impeachment,” offered a top officer in the National Headquarters. “Even if our DG committed the grave error of granting you such rare privilege, it is immoral for you to announce it on the pages of newspapers. Such character deserved to be monitored. I guess it remains to be seen how MTN is going to get out of this mess, because if they did that to me, I would sue the life out of them. It simply implies that MTN can’t be trusted with even the telephone conversation of Mr. President.”

And in UBEC, concerns among top officers of UBEC over the possibility of the controversial interview generating a backlash are not receding. “Some of us had advised him not to talk, but that it became inevitable, the PRO (Spokesman David Apeh) should do the talking,” an officer narrated.

Pointblanknews.com investigations further revealed that, by admitting he held a private session with President Yar’Adua, Modibbo may have shot himself in the foot. It is considered a grave breach of protocol for a public officer to seek audience with a governor or, in Modibbo’s case, with the President, without the express permission and approval of his boss.

The issue of Modibbo’s private session with the President has become the hottest issue in the Ministry of Education UBEC where officials are wondering how the head of a parastatal under their ministry was able to secure an appointment with the President without the knowledge of both ministers.

“The board (of UBEC) had been dissolved and I was reporting directly to the minister (Dukku). I had written to the minister and had not gotten response of the minister. So, I made arrangements to see Mr. President,” Modibbo affirmed in the interview.

Said a director in the ministry: “Wonders shall never cease, my brother. I wonder what these people are turning governance into. I can’t imagine and Obasanjo holding a private session with the head of an agency without the supervising minister present. We hear it is the State House Counsel (Jalal Arabi, who incidentally is Dukku’s brother-in-law) that arranged that sham of a meeting,” adding, “but the President has been a governor and should have known better.”

Modibbo had in the interview made what UBEC officials consider “reckless remarks” regarding his resort to NTI officials to investigate the authenticity of the companies that bided alongside Intermarkets in the now controversial furniture contract.

The officials also reportedly fault their boss for claiming that his now suspended deputy, Professor Sokan drafted the letter he sent ETF requesting for another N850 million to enable Intermarkets begin the Phase 2 of the furniture manufacture and supply.

“The man sounded senile in the interview. He claimed Sokan did the draft and that he merely signed it. What folly! How can a man this old, a former dean of a faculty in a university, a former head of NTI, come and publicly declare that he signed a document without reading it? It’s a poor afterthought.

“We also read him dropping the President’s name and that of former NSA, General Aliyu Gusau and his meeting to make the NSA disabuse the minds of the Americans over the MD of Intermarkets, Alex Cozma, and his wife whom our boss claimed was American. That was most stupid. He left the ball and went after the leg. Even at that, our ES should have known that Cozma is Nigerian-Lebanese, and his wife, Moroccan. So, you can imagine what ignominy he must have brought on him by reporting a Moroccan to the US officials.

“The point is, does Modibbo have a problem with the Lebanese community? Did he do business with them? UBEC, we all know, entered into a contractual agreement with Intermarkets, a corporate entity based in American which a Nigerian arm. We in UBEC breached the agreement and Intermarkets dragged us to court. Instead of putting up defence in court, our boss has taken the courts to the pages of newspapers to libel people, not sparing Senator Joy Emordi and Professors Borishade and Anaezi Okoro. This madness has got to stop,” hollered the official.

The UBEC official picked holes in his boss’ claim in the interview that Cozma, in the company of a certain Alhaji Gambo offered him a N10 bribe, which he said he rejected, and the torrent of threat letters he claimed came from the businessman .

“This is the most stupid lie I ever heard. How can you claim somebody offered you N10 million bribe and you couldn’t get your security connections to conduct a sting operation on him? The Intermarkets’ MD wrote you several letters threatening you? That also is a fat lie. I know my Oga (Modibbo). Does he look like somebody who would be threatened in writing and would merely file the letters in his personal library? Of course, not.

“As a professor of history, ES (Modibbo) should have known better that, by presenting a copy of the threat letters would have landed the man in jail. I don’t know why the people who interview him don’t ask him why a man like him who would connive with SSS operatives to bug people’s private telephones, would not want to hand over threat letters he claim are in his custody?” opined the official.

He concluded: “The issues are clear. In September, 2007, ES collected N850 million from ETF to finance a furniture contract with Intermarkets, which he has failed to account for till this day. He sacked his director of finance simply because she insisted he return over N4 billion MDG funds for Federal Teachers’ Scheme which he illegally diverted to buy substandard laptops from Malaysia. Now, thank God, Due Process has stopped him in his tracks to fritter away N5.7 billion on textbooks.”