Exclusive: BELLO IBRAHIM: ESCAPADES OF KEBBI’S ‘’TERROR’’ DIRECTOR

…How a level 10 Officer Personalises SUBEB

BY Our Correspondent

Ordinarily, Bello Ibrahim, the Director of Finance and Supply of the Kebbi state Universal Basic Education Board SUBEB should have no business in that office. As a level 10 officer, Bello Ibrahim, who joined the Kebbi state civil service as a messenger in 1995 should be nowhere near a directorship, more so when there are several more qualified and competent level 14 and 16 officers both on the board and elsewhere on the service including within the mother Ministry of Finance from where finance officers are detailed out to take up offices across the State.

Bello Ibrahim is accused by very top senior officers within the civil service of using very diabolical means, reckless gratification spree which is alleged to have compromised his immediate senior officers, usurpation of the statutory powers of all the other 5 directors on the board, including appropriating the powers and functions of the acting Executive Secretary Alhaji Ibrahim Bello Yauri as well as conflict of interests in the discharge of his duties. SUBEB is one of the money spinning organs of government where contracts and other patronages running into billions of Naira are executed. The Director of Finance is one of the six directors of the board, each of which is statutorily saddled with clear cut responsibilities. The Executive Secretary oversees all other directors, all things being equal. He, in turn reports to a board. The other directorates are quality assurance; JSS; personnel management; primary and social mobilization and planning, research and statistics.

As gathered by DESERT HERALD, allegations against Bello Ibrahim are legion, but the audacity of usurping the powers of every officer and running the board as his personal business is about the most topical within the Kebbi state civil service today, to the extent that, although he is clearly unqualified to hold that office, he is largely seen as one of the most overzealous, uncultured and fetish civil servants in the state. Ironically, each of the other five directors is a level 16 officer and none of them has more than two years to retirement.

A trade unionist in the Kebbi State Ministry of Finance who craved for anonymity for fear of possible victimization alleged that despite very strong suspicion on Bello Ibrahim’s educational and professional qualifications and his low level status, he has succeeded in usurping all powers and misusing such powers to undermine the civil service, enriching himself, dispensing favors to his seniors in order to block scrutiny of his past, misusing powers by unilaterally suspending junior officers in order to make way for his cronies, promoting indiscipline and dropping the name of the Governor to justify illegalities and corruption within the department. When asked how could a mere level 10 officer overshadows level 16 officers, the trade unionist explained that Bello Ibrahim was appointed the Director of Finance not on the basis of any qualification, but because he is from the same neighborhood with the Governor, Mr. Atiku Bagudu. Both of them, he noted, are from the old town of the Birnin Kebbi Metropolis.

The Governor has, since his assumption of office faced criticisms of nepotism in favor of unqualified nitwits from the area. According to him, ‘’there are about five of them who got appointed into directorship positions they were least qualified for. They are the same set of unruly, disrespectful and undisciplined opportunistic interlopers who have infested the Kebbi state Civil Service with all manner of mindless corruption, name dropping, anti-civil-service tantrums and absolute lack of respect for any senior officer. A Civil Servant in Kebbi confided in DESERT HERALD, “you can quote me; these misfits have brought the Kebbi civil service to its lowest level of disrepute ever on account of their being from the same locality with the governor.’’

He explained further that even though complaints about the five of them have been relentless, the case of the SUBEB director of finance tended to have displeased every other senior and junior officer the more, particularly in the Ministries of Finance and Education in particular.

How does he usurp powers of the other directors? The unionist claimed that even after a contract is routinely awarded, the director of finance has a penchant to bypass the executive secretary and the relevant director by going about project sites supervising progress of work instead of allowing the Directorate of Quality Assurance to undertake its oversight. ‘’Even the discipline, deployment and transfer of erring junior workers within the board and promotions that should be handled by the personnel management and other relevant departments have effectively been overtaken by the finance director and because he has mastered the art of dropping the name of the governor in particular, no other director utters a word of dissent for fear of persecution.’’ A senior officer in the Ministry of education who also spoke on condition of anonymity disclosed that Bello Ibrahim has succeeded in scaring away potential whistle blowers and other concerned stakeholders by the way he displays bunches of amulets wrapped around his body as well as his tendency to show up a diabolical capacity to be ruthless and arrogant.

Other allegations against Bello Ibrahim are that all his professional qualifications are allegedly fake, his Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) professional certificates have been called to question while the Certified National Accountant (CNA) prefix he loves to flaunt after his name cannot be satisfactorily defended. ‘’In fact, there is nowhere in the Kebbi state civil service that you will ever see Bello Ibrahim’s file of any type. Because according to insiders the file is full of questionable qualifications. He has allegedly gotten hold of the files and has kept them out of the reach of even his supervisors. Our source further revealed that, “I challenge you, if you ask for the file through the freedom of information bill (FOI) recently passed by the National Assembly, you will draw blank. Also ask for his certificates including his so-called highest qualification of HND which he claimed to have obtained from the federal polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi, you will be surprised at what you will see”.

Efforts by DESERT HERALD to speak to either the Kebbi state Head of Service, HoS, or the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance proved abortive. Calls and text messages by our reporter to their lines were unanswered. Also lamenting the situation  which they believe will affect the credibility of Governor Bagudu’s Administration, an influential and respected traditional title holder of Argungu Emirate and one-time Permanent Secretary told this paper that the antics of Bello Ibrahim should immediately be checked by Governor Atiku Bagudu. ‘’His appointment should be reviewed immediately because when you bring mediocrity and nepotism into such matters, you are bound to endanger the civil service. I can assure you that you have not heard up to ten percent of the irresponsibility of that boy and how he has been able to become stupendously rich, how he has compromised all layers of authority that could check his excesses and how he looks down on everybody in the state.’’ He disclosed that Bello reveled in an inconsequential and non-descript traditional title of ‘’Amirun Zoramawa’’ by which he comically carries himself in expensive traditional robes. Incidentally, not even the Emir of Gwandu can influence anything of worth as far as the Director is in charge.’’

A local contractor who has handled the renovation of a primary school in one of the local government areas of the state, Hamisu Yahaya opined that he was a witness to a conversation between Bello Ibrahim and one of his friends where he boasted that since the allegations of heists and financial malfeasance against Atiku Bagudu did not obstruct him from becoming a Senator and Governor, he too, will do as it suits him and get away with it.

Keep a date with DESERT HERALD in our subsequent editions for  a dossier on Bello Ibrahim’s properties, how he gives out Hajj seats like cinema tickets, how he takes orders from no one and a look at his suspicious educational and professional qualifications as well as the views of stakeholders on his antics. The dossier will also include Bello Ibrahim’s attempt at charming both Governor Atiku Bagudu and his influential brother Ibrahim Bagudu, in his machination to become the Accountant General of the state despite his glaring educational, professional and human relation deficits.