Trouble Looms For Buhari’s Aide, Bashir As ICPC Probes Payroll ‘Fraud’

The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) has commenced investigations into the alleged payroll fraud allegedly committed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s new media aide, Bashir Ahmad.

This is coming weeks after reports alleging that Bashir was receiving salaries from the Federal Government despite resigning from his position surfaced on social media.

ICPC noted that HEDA Resource Centre, a public-interest think-tank run by anti-corruption campaigner Lanre Suraju drew the commission’s attention to the media aide’s action.

The ICPC spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua said: “We received a complaint and we have commenced an investigation.

“Our investigation is preliminary at this stage in order to establish accuracy of the information we received and then we take it from there.”

The media aide, Ahmad, is said to have committed the fraud through the federal government payroll.

Documents Exposes Bashir Received Illegal Salaries

On May 11, after turning in his nomination and expression of interest paperwork for the All Progressives Congress House of Representatives ticket, Ahmad deleted the term “personal assistant to the president on new media” signaling that he had ended his job as an aide to the president.

He subsequently began to identify himself as a former presidential aide during several campaign rallies in his home state of Kano.

However, the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) for federal officials shown that Ahmad was paid millions of dollars in May, June, and July under his payroll number 372121.

Ahmad, after losing out of the primary election, got reappointed by Buhari and was said to have refunded the illicit payments in full to the federal coffers for the months he was not in service.

He also failed to supply evidence of the reimbursement or clarify what actions he took after receiving the first, second and third salaries, as well as federal allowances and estacodes, despite being a private citizen.