The Federal Government has suspended , the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Mr. Peter Jack, and replace him with Dr. Vincent Olatunji.
The Minister of Communications and Technology, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, gave the order for the change.
Olatunji until his appointment was the Director of Corporate Strategy and Research in the Agency. He joined NITDA in 2002.
According to a statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the minister, Victor Oluwadamilare, the suspension became imperative on the strength of a deluge of petitions regarding several alleged wrong doings in NITDA and findings of a preliminary investigative committee set up by the ministry.
The petitions against Mr Jack relate to illegal employments not approved by the appropriate authority, procurements carried out in direct contraventions of laid down rules and procedure unknown to Civil Service administration in Nigeria”.
“Some of the infractions identified by the Investigative Committee made up of three senior Ministry officials include unauthorised and illegal recruitment of additional staff totalling 245 within a spate of seven months,”Oluwadamilare said.
The preliminary investigative committee found that , “as at 29th May, 2015, NITDA only had a staff complement of 74. But from May, 2015 to 31st December, 2015, additional 245 staff were employed in questionable circumstances, despite clear instruction from the ministry directing suspension of employment in the Agency”.
According to the statement, “These disclosures were deduced from the records provided by Mr Jack, although he was unable to provide concrete information on whose authority he embarked on the massive recruitment and who granted him the authority for officials to be seconded to NITDA from other MDAs.”
