President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the immediate termination of appointment of Rev. Tor Ujah, as the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC).
Ujah has been directed to hand over to Director of Administration in the Commission, Mrs. Esther Kwaghe, who is to oversee the Office, pending the appointment of a Substantive Executive Secretary.
In a statement by the Director Information, Willie Bassey on behalf of Secretary to the Government of the Federation, said the termination “is in line with the provision of Section 4, Sub-Section 3 of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission Act.”
In a related development, President Buhari, has 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 since last year been under probe over a series of alleged fraud.
The Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) had in October 2018 gave instructions for the investigation of the allegations.
Among the allegations is the 10 different payment vouchers issued between 2017 and 2018, on behalf of the commission.
Ujah is being investigated for allegedly diverting $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 Ujah explained was used for hiring of a hall during the bidders’ education workshop, which held in Israel last year. But a source claimed that the workshop was held inside the hall of the Nigerian Embassy in Tel-Aviv, a place where he could not have made any such payment.
The sacked ES was also alleged to have transferred N1 billion meant for the commission’s local budget to the commission’s offshore account between 2016 and 2017.
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