A whistleblower sacked for
exposing alleged fraud at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2016, Ntia
Thompson, has been reinstated.
Mr. Thompson, an assistant
director in the Servicom Unit of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in
Africa (DTCA), was first suspended on December 19, 2016.
He was later disengaged from
service on February 23, 2017, for exposing fraud to the tune of $229,000 and
N800,000.
The fraud was alleged to have
been committed by Mohammed Kachallah, the Director-General of DTCA.
The move came just two months
after the Muhammadu Buhari administration, through the Executive Council of the
Federation, approved the whistle-blowing policy, promising full protection and
restitution for any informant against harassment, intimidation or
victimisation.
The case is currently being
investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Earlier in March, two civic
groups had called for the reinstatement of the whistleblower.
In an open letter sent,
one of the groups, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP,
had given the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, a seven-day
ultimatum to recall Mr. Thompson who was sacked after exposing the alleged
fraud.
But apart from Mr. Thompson, two
other whistleblowers, Aaron Kaase of the Police Service Commission (PSC) and
Murtala Ibrahim of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), are facing
similar ordeals.
Mr. Kaase has been on
suspension without pay since May 21, 2016, while Mr. Ibrahim, on his part, was
dismissed outright, report said.
Reacting to the news of Mr.
Thompson’s reinstatement on Monday, the Africa Centre for Media and Information
Literacy, AFRICMIL, described Mr. Thompson’s reinstatement as a triumph of
good over evil.
A statement signed by the
coordinator of the organisation, Chido Onumah, said the way government treats
such cases gives Nigerians an idea of how seriously whistleblowing should be
taken as an anti-corruption policy of government.
“Ntia’s case is a triumph of good
over evil and it gives us hope that we are moving in the right direction on the
whistle blower policy,” the statement said.
AFRICMIL, however, reminded the
government that in much the same way the whistleblower was persecuted, Messrs.
Kaase and Ibrahim are also being persecuted.
The organisation, therefore,
called on the relevant agencies of government and the ministers supervising
these institutions to urgently take necessary steps to return these workers to
their offices and investigate the misconduct they reported. It called on
investigating bodies to speed up the process of investigation and ensure that
those indicted are made to face the full wrath of the law.
“While it is ethically correct to
recall a dismissed whistleblower, it is also morally right that action is taken
on the reported wrongdoing in a just manner,” the statement said.
“Only through that way can the
confidence of potential whistleblowers be sustained.”
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Can you just imagine the way warriors fighting corruption are being sacked,dehumanizing, intimidated ,humiliated and subdued in a country which it's government claims to be fighting corruption..... APC is a scam..
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