Corruption Crackdown: Immigration Officer Faces Charges for Multi-Agency Scandal

Mr. Abubakar Mohammed Aseku, an Assistant Superintendent of Immigration with the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), has been charged by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC) with taking salaries from two other government organizations while he was still working for the NIS.

On a nine-count charge pertaining to corruption and abuse of power, Mr. Aseku appeared before Justice Binta Dogonyaro of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, Apo, Abuja, on Tuesday.

Despite being on active service with the NIS, the defendant allegedly earned N4.2 million in 2015 as a schoolteacher from the Nasarawa State Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, according to the ICPC.

Additionally, he is charged with taking N13.4 million in salary from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) while working for the Immigration Service in 2018 and 2019.

Furthermore, it is alleged that Mr. Aseku, a Pay Officer with the NIS, enabled the payment of N4.7 million in salary to seven people who were neither NIS workers nor on its payroll.

According to one of the accusations, "You, Abubakar Mohammed Aseku, while working as an Assistant Superintendent Immigration Officer in Abuja from October 2018 to October 2019, used your position to confer corrupt advantage upon yourself by receiving a total sum of N13,400,889.90." in salary from the Nigerian Immigration Service while working for the Department of Petroleum Resources, which is against the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Act, 2000, and is penalized under Section 19.

Mr. Aseku entered a not guilty plea to every accusation. Informing the court that his client had previously been granted bail by another FCT High Court located in Maitama, his attorney, Mr. Basil Hemba, begged the court to uphold the current bail conditions.

Justice Dogonyaro maintained the terms of the bail that the Maitama court had earlier set. Mr. Michael Adesola, the attorney for the ICPC, asked for an adjournment so that the prosecution may call its witnesses.

The matter was then postponed for a further hearing by the presiding judge until April 29, 2025.