Isa Pantami and Abike Dabiri-Erewa
By Our Reporter
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa has called on the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami to release properties belonging to NIDCOM, which were carted away from an office given by the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), an agency under the communications ministry.
In a letter addressed to the minister and dated 15th May 2020, Dabiri Erewa requested for the retrieval of items carted away as a result of the seizure of NIDCOM office at the NCC annex office, Abuja by the minister
‘Recall that the staff of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) were denied access to the 5th floor of NCC Annex office at Mbora District, on Tuesday 11th February, 2020 on the instructions of Your office. This came after the occupation of the said floor by the staff of NIDCOM, based on NCC’s earlier directive which granted us access to use the entire 5th floor of the Building’.
‘It was common knowledge that work had commenced in the building as a result of which various furniture and equipment were deployed for use in the building. It is gratifying to note that some of these furniture items were donated to NIDCOM by NCC., while several others were procured by Nidcom’
Dabiri Erewa added that ‘It is however sad to note that on the 14th February, 2020, the offices on the 5th floor were broken into without our knowledge and carted away properties belonging the Commission and staff of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission without our consent as well, purportedly on your further instructions’.
‘I am therefore overly concerned about the current state of these properties of the Commission and that of its members of staff. Not only are there sensitive, private and public documents at the risk of being damaged or lost, but there are expensive and irreplaceable personal belongings of the staff of the Commission at large, with no assurance that they are properly stored’.
‘Therefore, I am kindly calling on your good office to provide us access to the whereabouts of our belongings so we can jointly take inventory and retrieve them in the soonest possible time, in order to enable us serve Nigeria and its Diaspora community all over the world’ the letter states.
National WAVES learnt that the following items which NiDCOM believes have been carted away are two units of single face data ports, 24 port patch panel, one Mikrotik RB 750G router, one Mikrotik cloud router switch, two headsets with microphones, two Digital PABX, one 4u Server racks, Patch cables, three UPS, one HP desk jet 1012 all in one printer, one HP desk jet all in one printer (brand-new with the Carton), one Mercury UPS, (brand-new with the Carton), one Ellington extension cable (brand-new), two 3meter extension boxes, Data Antenna, seven HP All in one desktop, Camera tripod, Cannon 700 digital camera, Xenon laptop,144 Work stations & 144 Swivel office chairs, two Meter mini conference table, six Conference table chairs, three Meter executive office furniture set,one Executive sofa set, four Executive office furniture set,12 Executive office visitors’ chairs, five 4-seater work stations, two Reclineable executive chairs, four Ergonomic executive office chairs with lumbar support, Technology Transfer & Innovation department files and documents,Legal department files and documents, Accounts department files and documents, Secretary to the commission’s office entire files and documents, Admin department entire files and documents, Diaspora relations department entire files and documents, Media department entire files and documents, Roll up banners, Staff personal belonging such as printers, UPS, extension cables, stationeries (cartons of Chamex papers, staplers, pins, notice board) files & documents & toiletries etc.,140 work stations.
