Eric Patrick
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Kaduna Zonal Directorate, has arrested Bashir Bello Ibrahim, a former contractor with the Kaduna State Government and Chief Executive Officer of Formal Act Legacy Limited, over alleged multi-billion naira fraud.
According to the Commission, Ibrahim’s contract with the state government had long been terminated. However, the EFCC said it received no fewer than 251 petitions accusing him of posing as a consultant for all 23 local government areas in Kaduna State.
He is also alleged to have falsely represented himself as a consultant for the United Charity Foundation (UCF), FICCORD, and claimed affiliation with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Office.
This was contained in a statement by the Anti-graft agency shared on its Facebook page on Friday.
The statement also alleged that he informed his victims that he had a 2020 Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the Kaduna State government for the purpose of sourcing intervention grants from global donor agencies for the funding of LGA projects in the state and supporting the actualisation of SDGs within the state.
The EFCC revealed that the suspect is not a consultant to UCF; his 2020 MoU with the Kaduna State government was terminated by the state government in October 2023 as a result of default on the terms of the MoU by the suspect.
The statement further disclosed that, despite the termination of the MoU, the suspect intentionally engaged in unauthorised award of fictitious contracts to the tune of approximately N30 billion by convincing his contractor victims to supply items meant for construction of hospitals, motorised boreholes, hospital beds and mattresses, drugs and vaccines which he would allegedly receive on behalf of the Kaduna State government, sold some and diverted their proceeds to his personal use.
According to investigations, when the suspect took delivery of the supplies, he would warehouse them, kept the LGAs in the dark about their delivery, and failed to pay his contractors the value of what they supplied.
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It is also alleged that the suspect was selling contract award papers using proxies with whom he shared the proceeds.
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Items recovered from him include Toyota Hilux pick up vans, ambulances, buses, dispatch motorcycles, caches of drugs and vaccines for children, stacks of hospital beds and mattresses and heavy duty generators.
Found in his office store are large quantities of tablets, capsules, syrups, infusions, ointments/creams; medical consumables that include hand gloves, syringes, and mucus extractor.
The EFCC said that it is collaborating with NAFDAC and the Kaduna State Ministry of Health in the evaluation of the cache of medicines found in its storage facilities, as well as in carrying out qualitative analysis on them.
Following the inspections, the Investigation and Enforcement Officer, Federal Tax Force, NAFDAC, Umar Ahmad Suleiman said some of the drug manufacturers registered with NAFDAC, and that while some of the medicines are still within shelf life, some have expired, with some being outright counterfeits and their manufacturers unregistered with NAFDAC.
A pharmacist and Team Leader, Ministry of Health, Kaduna State, Abubakar Isa Balarabe, observed that some of the medicines had expired, adding that the warehouse where the medicines were stored fell below standard.
“The storage is not fit for any medicine because of the way and manner it was kept,” he said.
The EFCC said that Ibrahim will be charged to court as soon as the investigation is concluded.
