The Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu has said that a new leadership has been put in place for the smooth running of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
The minister had last week ordered the suspension of NITDA DG, Peter Jack and appointed a Director of Corporate Strategy and Research in the Agency, Vincent Olatunji as the Acting DG.
Jack was suspended over allegations bordering on illegal recruitment and procurement carried out in direct contraventions of laid down rules and procedure unknown to Civil Service.
The minister who spoke in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, at the maiden edition of Nigeria Communications Retreat organized by the Federal Ministry of Communications, at International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
“NITDA has a new leadership now even though in Acting capacity. We set up investigative panel to look at things that had gone wrong there in the last three years.
“If the suspended DG contravenes the provision in NITDA, he will forfeit his position but if not, other things will follow but for now, I don’t want to presume anything.”
Shittu had said the suspension became imperative on the strength of deluge of petitions regarding several alleged wrong doings in NITDA and subsequent preliminary findings of an Investigative Committee set up by the Ministry.
He added that the petitions against Jack relates to employments not approved by the appropriate authority and procurements carried out in direct contraventions of laid down rules and procedure unknown to Civil Service administration in Nigeria.
The ministry had earlier set a committee to investigate the myriads of allegations against Jack, adding that, “Some of the infractions identified by the Investigative Committee made up of three senior Ministry officials include unauthorised and illegal recruitment of additional staff totalling 245 within a spate of seven months.
“The committee also discovered that, “as at 29th May, 2015, NITDA only had a staff complement of 74. But from May, 2015 to 31st December, 2015, additional 245 staff were employed under questionable circumstances, despite clear instruction from the Ministry directing suspension of employment in the Agency”.
“These disclosures were deduced from the records provided by Mr Jack, although he was unable to provide concrete information on whose authority he embarked on the massive recruitment and who granted him the authority for officials to be seconded to NITDA from other MDAs”.
On the retreat, the minister described ICT as a key element in the country’s growth indices owing to its fundamental advantages.
According to him, Information and communication technology today creates more jobs than oil and gas and that can further be enjoyed, as investors from China would be investing N15 billion dollars in the ICT sector in Nigeria. So, potential two million jobs will be made available through investments in the sector.
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