Plateau Muslims Welfare Board Allegedly Stinks To High Heaven, With High Level Of Corruption And Misappropriation
Yakubu Busari
—Executive Secretary Denies Allegations
There are allegations of a high level of corruption that is rocking the Plateau State Muslim Pilgrims Board as a group of concerned Muslims Umah raised the alarm to the government of Governor Simon Bako Lalong to constitute a panel of investigation to unravel all the alleged dirty deals of the Executive Secretary, Barr.Awal Abdullahi.
The allegations of corruption point to the Executive Secretary that he has auctioned some of the board vehicles belonging to the Muslim Welfare Board to himself and friends without the due process attached.
The concerned Muslim Umah alleges misappropriation, and diversion of the Hajj funds, adding that the board activities have been marred with corruption and misappropriation and that the board has become a family and friends and associates enterprise.
The recent Hajj Pilgrims scenario attracted public condemnation from the Muslim community of Jos North, LGA, and across the state where the government allocated 100 seats for the 2022 Hajj to Saudi Arabia, but the board Secretary single-handedly shared them with his friends, family members, and cohorts.
Besides these ugly development claims, the group also stated that he disbursed 240,000, estacode which was sold amounting to N4million and those that couldn’t attend this year Hajj were alleged to have been adequately settled with millions when the government is currently not paying workers for almost getting to five months now.
There was a total rejection considering the nonpayment of staff salary where civil servants are now wallowing in total poverty.
An appeal was made to Governor Lalong to clear his name from this mess by constituting a panel of committees to do a thorough investigation towards unraveling activities going on with how the Hajj operation in the state works.
According to a source, this Muslim Welfare Board is gradually turning into a few family and friends’ businesses for them and themselves selecting those that are in their good books in attending hajj.
It was explained further the claim that they have refunded the sum of N50 million sometime in 2019 is not a true position on the issue.
“We are carefully calling on Governor Lalong as the Chairman of the Northern governors’ forum who has been fighting corruption to launch an investigation to expose the activities of the criminal element in the board.
Meanwhile, when contacted the Executive secretary of the board, Barr.Awal Abdullahi denied the allegation, however, he sent his own reply to the allegations which has been published by Universal Reporters.
