Teaching Hospital Scandal: Principal Administrative Officer of Teaching Hospital in Kaduna, Ibrahim Yunusa, Accused of Involvement in N200M Contract Scam

Secret Reporters

An investigative report by SecretReporters has revealed that Ibrahim Maiadashi Yunusa, the Principal Administrative Officer of Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital, has been implicated in a contract scam. This unethical practice is unfortunately common among public officeholders in Nigeria, and it violates the Code of Conduct for Public Officers which prohibits full-time officers from engaging in any private business or commercial venture other than farming.

Investigations into the alleged scam revealed that in January 2022, Ibrahim Maiadashi Yunusa was appointed as the Principal Administrative Officer of the hospital. Prior to his new position, he held the role of Senior Administrative Officer within the hospital. With a background in law, Ibrahim Maiadashi is also the proprietor of Baba Maiadashi and Company, a legal practice and consultancy firm.

Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital (BDTH) in Kaduna, Nigeria, was originally established in 1930 as a hospital for colonial administration officials and their families but was later renamed and upgraded to a specialist hospital in honor of Dr. Russell Barau Dikko, the first medical practitioner from Northern Nigeria.

In 2015, the government of Kaduna State established the hospital as a teaching hospital for Kaduna State University, and in 2016 it became operational after successful accreditation by the National University Commission and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.

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The hospital is now the major tertiary health institution in Kaduna and offers complementary services to other specialty-based tertiary health facilities in the town. Postgraduate training in Family Medicine has also been successfully accredited at the hospital.

SecretReporters conducted an investigation using the Nigerian Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) and discovered that in 2020, the Energy Commission of Nigeria, an agency under the Ministry of Science and Technology, awarded a contract for the construction of integrated solar street lights in Katsina South Senatorial District, Katsina State. The contract was budgeted for the sum of two hundred million Naira (N200,000,000).

The contract was awarded to four different companies, including Dom Mart International Ltd, Skyfrost Nigeria Ltd, Multicast Systems Ltd, Miftahul Hairi Integrated Concepts Ltd, and Hummingbird Projects & Services with investigations showing that the contract has been completed.

Further findings, however, revealed that Ibrahim Maiadashi Yunusa serves as a deponent to Miftahul Hairi Integrated Concepts Ltd, one of the companies awarded the contract, a possible indication that he was involved in the contract racketeering as he violated the Code of Conduct for Public Officers by engaging in private business while holding a full-time public office position.

The discovery of Ibrahim’s involvement in a contract scam of such amount has sparked questions about the ethical conduct of public officers and their adherence to the Code of Conduct in Nigerian public institutions as it remains unclear whether the Kaduna State government, led by Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, will take action against such administrative misconduct.

While the Nigerian populace has repeatedly called on relevant anti-graft agencies to investigate and prosecute corrupt public officers, often these calls have fallen on deaf ears, raising concerns about the effectiveness of the country’s anti-corruption efforts and the willingness of those in power to hold corrupt officials accountable.