Ibrahim Musa Tumsah the Director Finance and Accounts Federal Ministry of Power, Work and Housing had been in the eye of the storm lately. there had been barrage of accusations of sleaze and financial impropiety. He was said to have acquired multibillionaira assets through hill-gotten wealth, cutting corners as a public servant. The under listed properties and assets were copied antigraft agencies for investigation which include: Properties located in Abuja, Kaduna, Yobe and UAE: two Modern buildings located at FCDA Quarters, 4, Alexandra street, Wuse II, Quarry Plant in kuje Apartments located at 34, Enphrates Street, Wuse 2. twin Duplexes at 5, Sirasso Crescent Wuse2 An intimidating building at 27 Cairo Crescent and a leather manufacturing factory located at Igbani Street, all in eyebrow areas of Abuja. Furthermore, hectares of farm land in Damaturu, manufacturing factory, Kakuri, Kaduna, residential mansion at Gobarau Road Kaduna and with offshore investments in the united Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. He was said to have perpetrated this using some fictitious companies: Messrs: Rain Integrated Services, Rain Limited, while his family members especially his younger brother Tijani Tumsah was alleged to have acted as a front and a transactions decoy”. On all of these weighty allegations our investigative reporters went to unearth and scoop on these shenanigans.
We spoke with contacts at some antigraft agencies who said they don’t act on spurious petitions, stated that after receiving petitions, they do due diligence x-ray all available information, questioning, ”we don’t just receive petitions and swoop on people” he said. However in course of this features our reporters met a Lebanese expatriate contractor with one of the big construction firms in Nigeria. Simply known as Engineer Zadiff, who stated that “Vituperations against Ibrahim Tumsah is unwarranted and ill conceived, he said his construction firm had been doing contracts with the Federal Ministry of Works while they were in Lagos, who claimed to know many of the former Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and so many Directors;
He described Ibrahim Musa Tumsah as a quintessential Public Servant, upright and with integrity a man who does not run after contractors or cut deals, we know the civil Servants in the ministries that are crooks” Zadiff said he suspects some bad eggs are in the system who are very uncomfortable with the profile of Tumsah and especially how he had succeeded in over ten years working harmoniously with many permanent Secretaries and Ministers. In the same vein, a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works who pleaded anonymity, said it is always difficult to please the Ministry’s workers union and some desperadoes who are always willing to call the shots and have things their own way, he described them as the “Cynics, critics, skeptics and traducers” who have turned the Ministry and Agencies into a fat cow that must be milked. He described Tumsah as highly cerebral, committed and transparent that with him the job of a Permanent Secretary as the chief accounting officer is made simple and advised Purveyors of information to be ethical in their professional conduct.
-Isreal Balogun, Chinwe Ogbulafoh and Ali Adamu
