A federal lawmaker representing Pankshine/Kanam/Kanke federal constituency, Yusuf Gagdi, alongside 36 others, was indicted in an investigation by PREMIUM TIMES for taking bribes from federal agencies being probed by ad hoc House committee he chairs.
The “corrupt” 37-man committee was investigating job racketeering by federal agencies and it had collected at least N267 million in bribes from federal tertiary institutions. The kickback was paid in an account belonging to Ama Business Solutions, a company fronting for the committee as a consultant. There are a lot of red flags about the company as well.
The committee was constituted following a motion moved on July 5 by Oluwole Oke, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) member representing the Obokun/Oriade federal constituency of Osun State. The lawmaker urged the lower legislative chamber to investigate the monumental graft surrounding personnel recruitment in government parastatals.
He would later request the House to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate all MDAs and tertiary institutions. The Deputy Speaker, Ben Kalu, who presided over plenary on that date, agreed. He then went ahead to constitute an ad hoc committee with 37 members — one lawmaker per state and the Federal Capital Territory.
Deputy Speaker Ben Kalu did not announce a chairperson for the Committee. It was Speaker Tajudeen Abbas who, the following day, appointed Yusuf Gagdi to lead the panel. Gagdi, who was not on the original list announced by the deputy speaker, was one of the contenders who stepped down for Abbas during the June speakership tussle.
When contacted, Gagdi denied that his committee took bribes from any institution or agency.
“How can a member of a committee ask you for money, and you will not report to the committee Chairman? he asked. I am the one presiding over the committee. If someone had asked you for money, you should report to the chairman,” he said. But the medium authoritatively proved him to be lying.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GAGDI
Yusuf Gagdi, rep member Plateau State (Committee chairman, House committee investigating job-racketeering in federal agencies)
WikkiTimes had earlier reported how an N80 million proposed project linked to Gagdi was outrageously inflated to N4.58 billion.
The project — construction of Dengi-Kwalmiya-Gagdi-Wawus S/B Bauchi Road in Plateau State — was awarded to the Nigerian Navy under the supervision of Gagdi who is the chairman of the House Committee on Navy.
Surprisingly, Gagdi defended the red flags observed in the allocation.
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Defending the allocation of the project of the contract to the Navy, he claimed the military has engineers who have expertise in road construction. Gagdi added that recognised entities such as the Ministry of Works and its subsidiary, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) are already overwhelmed and sometimes, could not deliver most of the works awarded to them.
He also argued that the money allocated for the contract was not inflated. However, findings show that the road links to his hometown, Gum-Gagdi.
Gagdi was born on November 5, 1989. He is a politician of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He was elected into the House in 2019. He was profiled by ThisDay newspaper as seen here.
Editor’s Note: Twenty-one out of the indicted members of the committee hail from areas WikkiTimes covers. We will tell you what we know about them for the next 20 days.
