Call HoS to Order on National Assembly Clerk, Group Tells Buhari

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The National Intervention Group of Nigeria has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to call the Head of Service (HoS), Folashade Yemi-Esan, to order on the controversy surrounding the terminal leave of the outgoing Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Mr. Olatunde Ojo.

The group’s Coordinator, Akinloye Oyeniyi, made the appeal while addressing journalists at the National Assembly yesterday.

He said by asking the outgoing CNA to remain in office during his three months pre-retirement leave which started on Monday.

He alleged that the HoS was by her action trying to subvert the civil service rule.

Ojo, on the strength of the letter from the HoS, proceeded on his terminal leave without appointing anyone to oversee the affairs of the federal parliament on acting capacity.

Oyeniyi said: “It is pertinent to say here  that the Outgoing Clerk to the National Assembly, Mr. Olatunde Ojo, is set to spend his three months’ pre-retirement Leave in office following the intervention of the same Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs. Folashade Yemi-Esan, in defiance of the Public Service Rule (PSR) 100238 which states: “Officers are required to give three months notice to retire from service before the effective date of retirement. At the commencement of the three months, officers should proceed immediately on the compulsory one month Pre-retirement, workshop/seminar.

“The Clerk, who is supposed to commence his mandatory three months Pre-retirement Leave on Monday November 14, preparatory to his final exit from office on February 14, 2023, when he would have attained the retirement age of 60 years, will be in office till that same last day because of an embarrassing manipulation of rules. The group also urged Buhari to mandate the Yemi-Esan to conclude the now stalled process of appointing a substantive Accountant-General of the Federation in the interest of the country.”

Oyeniyi said the completion of the smooth running, integrity of the anti-corruption drive of the Federal Government and supremacy of Section 1(2) of the 1999 Constitution.

He said: “It is a thing of great concern that a process that commenced pursuant to the President’s directive conveyed through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on 16th June, 2022, has now been subjected to the authority and whims and caprices of the HoS of the Federation.

“You will all recall that in line with the President’s directive, a service-wide circular was issued inviting eligible directors (accountants) on Grade Level 17 in the pool of Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to apply following certain criteria and that at the close of submission of applications and security clearance by relevant security agencies, about eight aspiring directors scaled through.

“It is also suspicious that the Minister manning the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Ms Zainab Ahmed, who announced the appointment of Anamekwe Nwabuoku, to oversee the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, following the suspension of Ahmed Idris, on alleged charges of Corruption, has been very quiet on the current issues surrounding the appointment of substantive Accountant-General of the Federation.

It is on these premises and many more that we have been calling on Mr. President to not at this critical hour forget his government’s anti-corruption mantra by disregarding in its entirety, the Head of Service of the Federation’s latest request and appoint a substantive Accountant-General of the Federation from the pool of the qualified candidates already screened.

“We also call on Mr. President to probe the latest activities of the Head of Service of the Federation, that of the acting Accountant-General of the Federation and other conspirators, as regards this selection process.”