Corruption: ONSA Under Fire Over Alleged Diversion of Presidential Guards’ Allowances

The Office of the National Security Adviser, NSA, has been accused of alleged diversion of funds and discriminatory payment of allowances meant for security personnel work­ing at the Presidential Villa.
The Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NO­PRIN), has therefore called on the NSA to ur­gently intervenein order to ensure fair treatment and speedy resolution of the complaints among State House security staff over their suspicion of diversion and conse­quent non-payment of arrears of their Risk Cau­tion Allowance (RCA) approved by the Presi­dent for all State House security.

In a letter addressed to the NSA and signed by the National Coordi­nator of NOPRIN, Oke­chukwu Nwanguma, the group called for the comprehensive investi­gation of the allegations.
NOPRIN in the letter disclosed that it was reli­ably informed that, “the security staff members affected are those whose primary responsibility is to cover any presidential movement within the South West, South South and South East, includ­ing the Vice President and visiting Presidents of foreign countries.
It stated that arrears of one year and three months were approved for all the State House Security staff and pay­ment commenced in October 2016 and that all the Presidential Villa Security Staff were given forms from the office of the NSA to fill for this allowance and they all filled the Presidential Villa Security Staff Per­sonal Data form in Janu­ary and again in Novem­ber 2016.”
The group further la­mented saying: “How­ever, while those at the Presidential Villa, Abuja have been receiving alerts for their paid al­lowances since October, their counterparts at the Lagos Unit 239, Dodan Barracks, Lagos - 63 in all- are yet to receive any payment.
“That the office of NSA is in charge of this fund and that the af­fected security staff have made representations to his office without any respite and that even for those paid in Abuja, not all of them of the same rank received the same amount; for example, while some received as high as N1.67 million each, others received as low as N75,000 each.
“However, some of the superior officers who were initially underpaid were later paid their full allowance after they al­legedly protested but not the same for junior offi­cers who cannot openly complain.
It noted that some of the security staff also complained of being discriminated against by being labelled ‘PDP Po­lice’ and that the Squad­ron Commander, PMF 24 Villa Abuja, Abdul­lahi Ibrahim (CSP), has threatened the affected security staff with trans­fer if they continue to complain.