By Rabiu Garba
If the story making the rounds is anything to go by, then there is a strong moral question that Dr. Chinedu Nneji, the self-styled Commandant-General of National Unity and Peace Corps (NUPEC) needs to answer as quickly as possible. Feelers from that organization indicate that Dr Nneji is not the founder of the organization after all.
The Founder and Commandant-General of the agency is one Professor Humphrey Ogoegbunam, who in a petition to Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIGP) in Charge of Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (CIID), Force Headquarters, Abuja dated 25th April, 2016, accused Nneji of treachery, back-stabbing and forcefully hijacking the organization from him in bewildering circumstances.
In the petition, Prof. Ogoegbunam disclosed that he founded and established NUPEC) on 14th March 1987, registered it with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC No 6265 in 1992 and further registered it as an NGO under the Ministry of Interior as mediators.
According to the Ogoegbunam, when he fell sick in April 2013 and had to be flown to USA for treatment, he handed over to Nneji as Acting Cmdt-General. Unfortunately, when he returned to Nigeria after regaining his health, Nneji, who joined the agency in January 2013 and paid N25,000 on the 17th January, 2013 for both uniform and training, refused to hand-over over to him (the founder).
The petition titled “Complaint of Criminal Conspiracy, Forgery, Extortion, Fraudulent Conversion of my Organization NUPEC by Chinedu Nneji as His Own and Threat to my Life and My Family’’ reads in part: ‘’I returned to Abuja having fully recovered and it was made known to me by the Ministry of Interior that Dr. Chinedu Nneji was fraudulently extorting money from prospective applicants in negation of the conditions laid down in the Registration Approval given to us in our Operational License MIA/C&B/81/288 of November, 2006 by the Ministry of Interior on Provision 2(1).’’
The founder of NUPEC made a passionate appeal to the Police authorities to step in to retrieve his organization from the hands of the ‘’usurper’’ called Nneji and ensure that he accounts for every kobo he had “fraudulently collected from members of the public and face prosecution in court of law’’.
In a similar petition to the Chairman, House Committee on Interior, Prof. Ogoegbunam also made a solemn appeal to the House to disassociate itself from Nneji, who he accused of abusing the noble objectives of the corps as a “mediatory, peacekeeping, conflict resolution outfit into a war corps”, where beating, willful dismissal/suspension of subordinates, especially from the Northern part of the country has become the order of the day.
There are rumours making the rounds that instead of Nneji to sympathize with Dr. Akoh and the PCN in their current travails in the hands of police, he is allegedly celebrating and hobnobbing with the traducers of the PCN. But he must realize that when the table eventually turns against him, he will be left alone with the can with nobody to empathize with him.
While the police has been busy chasing shadows in PCN and accusing it of extortion, the real culprit is NUPEC, where there are allegations that N80,000-N200,000 are been collected from members to enable them skip training. Similarly, NUPEC under Nneji is also being accused left, right and centre of collecting huge sums of money from willing officers with a view to promoting them to higher rank. Yet, this is the same person the police is giving protection through deployment of a complement of police security details. This speaks volumes about the despicable level Nigeria has sunk as a nation.
Even as Nneji continues to delude himself that he will eventually be crowned the new boss of Nigeria Peace Corps (NPC) once the president assents to the NPC Bill, he must be told in no uncertain terms that he can never realize his tall ambition. At least the following salient points about the Bill will serve as a rude reminder to him.
During the consideration of the Bill in the National Assembly, several memoranda were received and oral submissions made by diverse interest groups, including traditional rulers, government ministries/agencies and individuals. Over 235 of these were in support of the Akoh led corps, while only 14 supported Nneji’s NUPEC.
Again, virtually all the submissions contained in the Akoh led NPC Bill, including the Title; Functions/Objectives and nomenclature of the Head of the Corps, which is the National Commandant, were adopted. Also, while the name of the NPC under Akoh’s leadership was mentioned repeatedly all through the Senate/House of Representatives report, that of NUPEC was mentioned only once.
While Dickson Akoh’s PCN has over one hundred and thirty five thousand regular members and volunteers with functional offices in the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory, NUPEC operates skeletal services with offices in less than five states and membership strength of less than ten thousand.
In a nutshell, for Nneji and members of his organization to be qualified for absorption into NPC, they have to meet the condition as stated in Clause 37(g), in addition to falling within the required age bracket of between 18 and 45 years.
Garba is a commentator on national issues based in Abuja
