In an earlier PUNCH report, the National Intervention Group of Nigeria had accused the Head of Civil Service of the Federation of corruption in the appointment of a substantive Accountant-General of the Federation.
This accusation was contained in an open letter by the group to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), which was obtained by our correspondent.
The letter was signed by the group’s National Coordinator, Akinloye Oyeniyi.
Speaking with our correspondent over the phone, Ahmed said the process for appointing the Accountant-General is rigorous, and the Head of Civil Service was approved by the President to ensure the smooth running of the process.
He also noted a number of persons vetted initially were disqualified eventually for security reasons.
He said, “It is not true. If you know the processes of selection of Accountant-General, Auditor-General, Permanent Secretary, Solicitor-General of the Federation, it is a rigorous thing. It starts with screening. Then exam and after that, there is security clearance by the Department of State Services.
“But the issue they are having with this selection process, the Head of Service deemed it right that it had been lingering for long and considering what happened to the former Accountant-General – how he left unceremoniously – that she wrote to the president for approval to appoint. She was not doing that before. He gave her the go-ahead.
“The people were screened and sent to the security agencies for clearance. It was the clearance that brought a very damning report on a lot of them. Only very few passed through.”
He further noted that due to the small number of people that qualified, there was the need to give more people an opportunity to vie for the position.
Ahmed said, “For the process to have credence we need as many people as possible. We want to widen the net. Exams have just been concluded. Some people have qualified after the screening, we are trying to bring them on board so that they can be participant.”
He added that there was a whole gamut of people involved in the process and the Head of Service did not have the final say.
