Following allegations of corruption and maladministration, President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday finally gave approval for the immediate termination of the appointment of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC) Mr. Tor Ujah.
Accordingly, Ujah was directed to hand over the running of the day to day affairs of the Commission to the Director of Administration, Mrs. Esther Kwaghe.
Mrs Kwaghe is to oversee the Office, pending the appointment of a Substantive Executive Secretary.
This was contained in a statement by the Director Information in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, who said the termination “is in line with the provision of Section 4, Sub-Section 3 of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission Act.”
In this wise, President Buhari directed the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to work out an appropriate framework for the operation of offshore account maintained by the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission, and all other Federal Government Agencies in order to streamline their operations.
Ujah, who was appointed in 2016, has been under the searchlight over issues of financial misdemeanor and maladministration among other issues.
In October 2018, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), gave instructions for the investigation of the various allegations against Ujah. Notable among the allegations is the different payment vouchers issued between 2017 and 2018, on behalf of the NCPC.
Ujah also being investigated for alleged diversion of $229,000 meant for ensuring pilgrims’ visit to Israel, Greece and Rome in July 2017, among other allegations. He is also being investigated for allegedly diverting $103,000 in 2018, which he claimed was spent in the hiring of a hall during the bidders’ education workshop in Israel in 2018.
Checks however indicate that the workshop was held inside the hall of the Nigerian Embassy in Tel-Aviv, a place where he could not have made such a payment. The sacked ES was also alleged to have transferred N1 billion meant for the NCPC’s local budget to its offshore account between 2016 and 2017 among other issues.
