A civil servant, Mr. Martins Atijegbe, has urged President Bola Tinubu to intervene over the alleged ‘perpetual victimisation’ by some officers of the Ministry of Works for exposing employment racketeering and illegal enrolments into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) in his ministry.
Atijegbe, a GL 9 officer in the ministry said in Abuja that he was a victim of lack of protection for whistle blowers in workplace.
According to him, He has not received any salary since August 2024 and has also been denied promotion by the ministry, apart from other maltreatment, for exposing the illegalities by some officials at the ministry.
Atikegbe stated: “I am still in the employment of the ministry because I was not dismissed, but I have been denied salaries for 15 months. When I went to demand for my payslip to know why my salaries have not been paid.
“I was told to get the permission of the Human Resource Director before I can have access to the payslips. I have also been denied promotion since this issue began.”
Also, his lawyer, Dr. Abdul Mahmud alleged that Atijegbe is a victim of carefully orchestrated campaign of fraud, abuse of power, criminal conspiracy and defamation.
Mahmud told newsmen that Atijegbe’s offense was having the courage to expose a cabal of employment racketeering in the ministry and that his client, with file number WAB 88279 exposed the alleged fraud, including officers with fake appointment letters being documented and enrolled into IPPIS.
He added: “He (Atijegbe) raised the alarm and his petition dated July 27, 2020 was sent to the then Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola.
“Copies of the petition were also sent to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Civil Service Commission and anti-graft commission, ICPC.
“In response to the petition, an eight-man investigative committee was established, but the process was flawed by involving some people mentioned in the alleged corrupt practices in the committee.
“There was also the violation of fair hearing as Atijegbe was denied access to the committee’s report and the evidence used against him in spite of repeated request,” Mahmud said.
While saying that there were unsubstantiated allegations against his client as he was accused of extortion and sexual harassment without presenting any witness, Mahmud said that there was suppression of evidence as key cases of fraudulent documentation was tactically omitted from the final report and the findings were also falsely manipulated.
He said that his client has been experiencing perpetual threats to life, safety and was also being persecuted officially after being posted to field office in Gwagwalada against natural justice.
Mahmud, on behalf of his client, demanded the resignation of the civil servants involved in the case and also the investigation of the eight-man committee and the officers involved in the alleged racketeering.
Mahmud urged the National Assembly Committee on Public Petitions and Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to exercise their constitutional powers under section 88 of the 1999 constitution to investigate the matter and expose the corruption.
Attempts to get reactions of the ministry to the allegations were unsuccessful as calls and messages placed to the directors of Human Resources and Information respectively were neither answered nor returned.