BREAKING: Nigeria Governors Forum is cesspit of corruption, Director declares in leaked letter

Nigeria Governors Forum, an association of incumbent governors in Nigeria with financial contributions to a central coffers has been enmeshed in financial sleaze and deep corruption, according to a leaked letter by the Director of the Forum.

The Secretariat of the Forum has been turned into a battlefield by Governors on suspicion of fraud and reckless spending by executives of the forum who ensured that the financial record was not audited.

This is even as the letter indicated that the Forum has not been audited for the past ten years.
In a letter addressed to NGF Chairman and Governor of Kwara State, AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq, by the NGF Director, Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, he expressed concern at the turn of events and described activities of the Forum as “transactional rather than developmental”.

The letter was leaked to the press on Sunday in Abuja.

The letter pointed out that the NGF once, focused on development has in recent years and till now become “a conduit pipe for a few individuals”.

The Director of Media in the letter demanded for a forensic audit of all the NGF accounts including those that were opened during crises periods to avoid the “prying eyes of governors in the name of NIGOFO among others.”

Barkindo insisted that the NGF accounts and finances have been turned into personal fiefdom of some individuals, demanding that the Forum should be audited.

“The secretariat’s accounts have not been audited in the last decade to say the least, that even the phony auditors invited to mock the auditing process have at various times confessed that the job they are doing for the secretariat is a wash.

“Has anyone ever wondered why an institution that midwife’s huge monetary deals like the Paris-London refunds does not have a qualified accountant? In an organisation that makes over three billion Naira annually, the total annual income of its entire staff is seventy million naira. Staff of the Forum are always asking where all the money goes. There is a staff that earns N20,000 a month ($20.)

“There are instances. The N630m deductions from the N5bn infrastructure support fund which ended in a shouting bout among governors while you are chairman was a deliberate ploy to make you look bad among your colleagues.

“The secretariat did not brief you adequately. Their instructions from their master’s house, across the street, was to set booby traps and obstacles in your path. I am a witness.

“On the Paris-London Club transaction which the NGF midwifed, the NGF made close to N19bn out of which the staff of the NGF were to be rewarded with N850m by the Chairman of the Forum, at the time Governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar of Zamfara State.

“In my opinion, the NGF requires a forensic audit of all its accounts including those that were opened during crises periods to avoid the prying eyes of governors in the name of NIGOFO among others.”