Recently both conventional and online media were awash with allegations seemingly sponsored to tarnish the hard earned reputation of Mr. Abubakar Tela Suleiman, an assistant payroll personnel at the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority (UBRBDA) Yola Adamawa state. The campaign of calumny was to the effect that Suleiman allegedly used the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPS) to defraud staff of the agency through their salary bank accounts.
It beats any imagination to come to terms with this unimaginable fake and cooked-up story that an integrated payroll system can be manipulated by one man who is far away from the database and breakthrough the salary payment system to unlawfully enrich himself and others.
May I educate Habib Garba and Amos Douglas, who are the petitioners hired to embark on this long voyage of unprofitable venture, that the introduction of IPPS is to stop illegal payment of undue salaries, and illegal deductions as well as control the financial system of government through an automated system
That is why your petitions to all anti-graft agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offenses Commission (ICPC), the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, and the Federal Ministry of Water Resources on January 21, 2022 could not get headway. I see your actions as a brainwashed wisdom of the belief that the best form of defense is to launch an attack to cover many of your sins soon to be in the public domain.
I scrutinised your petitions on massive fraud and abuse of office orchestrated in the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System by Abubakar Suleiman, the Assistant Director Finance of the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority Yola, Adamawa state on February 9, 2023. It’s a journey of about eight months to pin down Suleiman which failed.. I therefore ask: Why is it that investigations by the EFCC, the ICPC, the minister, the permanent secretary, the auditor general, and the entire Ministry of Water Resources neither indicted nor found Suleiman guilty after many of your baseless petitions were submitted to them?
I am compelled to write in defense of Suleiman who over the years he chosen to remain silent and allow God and natural justice to take its full course. I see him as a perfect and honest gentleman to have remained a silent warrior. I am very sure the assistant director has all it takes to reply you in defense and fight back to clear his name you are dragging into the mud. Despite your gang-up and the show of hatred to cover the mess you all committed, the Ministry of Water Resources constituted a committee to investigate the matter and found Suleiman not guilty. It should have dawned on you by now that you are fighting a lost battle and be sure that the law of karma will catch up with you sooner than later.
May I also tell Douglas and Habib that the court of public opinion has equally found Suleiman innocent of your frivolous and baseless allegations. This is why I am defending him and I want to clear his name from all the mess you have caused him. You have taken too long on the wrong person, please watch back at the four fingers pointing at you, I am sure it is an accusation of your hiding crimes to be unearthed soon.
I know of a time in many organisations when there was a mistake in salary payment through an IPPS, some were overpaid while many others were underpaid and vouchers were raised by upright accountants and returned mopped-up money to the government’s treasury. Maybe my gullible petitioners were unable to question whether Suleiman was able to return money if there were lapses of payment through the IPPS emanating from his office.
One thing I know and am very sure of, no one can stand the fight of siphoning government’s money to enrich himself and still be roaming the streets of Yola unarrested after all forms of petitions against him. I can say that Suleiman has passed the integrity test of a corrupt-free government official. Following your petitions, the DSS, ICPC, and EFCC have, unknown to you, invited Suleiman and cleared him of all the allegations you are sponsoring and peddling around the media.
His silence by not replying your foul petitions is wisdom and I commend him for such maturity. I call you to leave him alone and take your troubles elsewhere, I am very sure soon, and very soon you too will meet your waterloo of servants with unfaithful stewardship. He who laughs last laughs best; in all these, Suleiman will laugh last. He will keep going high because I found out from all records that your attacks are a mere defense to shield your one thousand and one sins. Tell your sponsors that Suleiman is as pure as a crystal, he is innocent of all your petty petitions.
On a final note, let me reiterate that the court of public opinion has vindicated Suleiman, thus my confidence to write this article for the record. He has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is a leader who cannot stoop low in replying you over baseless issues. But he earned the respect of the public and I found it a duty to write on his defense that you have succeeded in wasting your time, killing your moral guard by losing your entire respect in the eyes of the general public. Nobody can buy your word for a penny in this battle you were hired to do. You lost it all through. You have all disgraced yourselves and he won it over you because of his decision not to reply you.
As a professional accountant, I can say that Suleiman has kept one of the cleanness records since the history of Yola UBRBDA. Otherwise, your petition would have long booted him out of office and put behind bars to serve a jail term.
Look elsewhere on who to fight please as Suleiman has gone far to become what destiny has for him, take it or leave. The head destined to wear the golden crown, must one day wear it; your petitions cannot stop it. Abubakar Suleiman Tela, God is with you, the people are with you and natural justice is a jury and judge to disgrace your enemy.
Robert, a public affairs analyst, writes from No. 22 Lere Drive Ungwan Rimi, Kaduna, Kaduna state
