ICPC Launches Probe into Bribery Claims Against Reps Job Committee

The ICPC has initiated an investigation into allegations of bribery involving the House of Representatives Committee responsible for job racketeering and the gross mismanagement within government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).

Azuka Ogugua, who serves as the spokesperson for the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), made this announcement in a statement released on Friday in Abuja.

Ogugua explained that the ICPC had received petitions from both the online news outlet, Premium Times Nigeria, and Yusuf Adamu Gagdi, the Chairman of the ad hoc committee. These petitions called for an inquiry into allegations of bribery concerning the investigative panel.

The online news outlet had published a story claiming that certain members of the committee had allegedly demanded that vice chancellors and heads of tertiary institutions make payments to a specific account as bribes.

The story also claimed that the account was dedicated for the purpose of giving a soft landing to any institutions’ that would pay the bribe money into it during the investigation.

Members of the committee were also said to have engaged in extortion from heads of MDAs, including those of academic institutions.

Gagdi had on Thursday said the committee wrote to ICPC to investigate the allegations of bribery and extortion against the members of the committee.

The chairman said that the committee had written to ICPC to investigate the account number allegedly released to heads of tertiary institutions for payment of the bribe.

“I have already written to the ICPC to investigate the account number that was published by an online medium the owner of that account, whether there is any transaction by vice chancellors and rectors of polytechnic in the country.”

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