A crisis is brewing over the proper procedure for the appointment of the next Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF), as seniority in rank and merit appear to have been abandoned, according to QUEST TIMES findings.
Some directors at the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAuGF) have begun planning to be appointed substantive AuGF following the departure of Mr Adolphus Aghughu in 2022, with senior officials arguing that seniority and merit should be strictly followed for the appointment.
According to QUEST TIMES’ investigations, the OAuGF’s directors are, in order of seniority, Mrs. Adeoti Oluseyi Ogundowo, Mr. Gbayan Shirwu Gabriel, and Mr. Ogochukwu Onwudili.
Mr Onwudili is currently the Director Overseeing of Audit in the OAuGF, which, according to our sources, has not gone down well with his peers, who argue that he is not the most senior. Mr. Onwudili succeeded Mr. Aghughu, who retired in September 2022.
A crisis erupted when the Federal Civil Service Commission appointed Mr Onwudili as Acting AuGF in a letter dated September 7, 2022 ahead of two of Mrs. Ogundowo and Mr. Gabriel who are the next two senior directors after Mr. Aghughu.
Mrs. Ogundowo joined the OAuGF in 1990, two years before Mr. Onwudili.
One of our sources accused Aghughu and Onwudili of deception, nepotism, and tribal bigotry. According to the source, “They both conspired with and twisted the arm of the Head of Service in order to avoid the seniority and merit ranking criteria outlined in the current version of Public Service Rule coded as PSR 020106, which specifically provided for appointments based on resumption of office.”
The PSR 020106 Gazetted in 2009 states that “seniority in any department shall be determined by the entry/the assumption of duty certified by an authorized officer as reflected in the appropriate register.”
Another source who is a senior official in the OAuGF said “To demonstrate his dishonesty, he [Onwudili] was appointed as the OAuGF’s ‘Director Overseeing,’ a position that is only expected to last three months. We are now in the sixth month.
“In accordance with the Public Service Rule, the Federal Civil Service Commission advertised the vacancy for the position [Acting AuGF], and one of the directors’ names [Ogundowo] was removed,” a source told QUEST TIMES.
He continued, “The advert stated that the directors who still had at least two years in service should apply. That was the last anyone heard before Onwudili went to arm-twist the Head of Service of the Federation.
“The situation became so tangled that the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee, which held a public hearing on it, and the Senate Public Accounts Committee ordered a halt to the recruitment process altogether,” he noted.
Aghughu still pulling the strings
Our findings reveal that Mr Aghughu, the outgone OAuGF, is still the person insisting on getting his preferred choice, Mr. Onwudili as his successor.
“Aghughu’s reputation for being ruthless and redeployment of staff who dare challenge his alleged highhanded leadership style out of the Abuja headquarters to other states play a key role in his determination to get two of his stooges – Onwudili and Ngozi Eucharia to succeed him at all costs,” according to a reliable source. According to the source, the former AuGF quickly influenced the promotion of Mrs. Ugwu Ngozi Eucharia to the post of Director of Audit in charge of Higher Education in order to reduce the chances of Mrs. Ogundowo becoming AuGF because “he doesn’t want a Yoruba woman to taste that office.”
Several sources claim that he is willing to go to any length to ensure the appointment of his preferred choice.
According to Quest Times’ findings, the Head of Service of the Federation and the Federal Civil Service Commission have used seniority criteria in several correspondences with OAuGF operations in recent times. As a result, all sources were perplexed as to why the seniority criteria and the contentious PSR 020106 were dropped in the recent appointment of the acting OAuGF.