POLITICAL PUPPET: HOW FIRS CHAIRMAN BABATUNDE FOWLER AWARDED CONTRACTS TO HIS CRONIES TO FUND PARTY CAMPAIGNS

Secret Reporters

The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler has once again been accused of corruption and fraud and like the reverse form of the English folklore ‘Robin Hood’ has allegedly embezzled and diverted public funds through arbitrary award of contract to help his friends in the political strata at the expense of Nigerian taxpayers.

In a petition against the FIRS Chairman made available to SecretReporters, it was revealed that the tax administrator in his bid to milk the Commission dry, awarded a contract for the maintenance of all ICT equipment at the FIRS without any contract biding to Messrs Rholavision Engineering Limited; an Engineering company owned by Engr. Babachir Lawal, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) who was suspended on April 19th, 2017 by President Buhari, on grounds of fund misappropriation which according to sources was allegedly used to fund the ruling APC Campaign in the North East during the 2019 campaign.

More information revealed that the mutual relationship between the Vice President, Yemi Osibanjo and Babatunde Fowler however led to the award of another contract, this time to a law firm Messrs Simmons Cooper Partners located on the 9th Floor, Fortune Towers, 27/29, Adeyemo Alakija Street, Victoria Island, Lagos with a branch office at 9, Rima Street, Maitama, Abuja allegedly owned by the Vice president and manned by his protege and a founding partner Babatunde Irukera, who is presently a governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress in Kogi State and the Director-General Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

The contract to Simmons Cooper Partners was to run the auditing of Nigerian companies and collection of revenue amounting to billions of Naira.

This diversion model SecretReporters gathered was imported from Babatunde Fowler’s earlier days as the Executive Chairman of Lagos State Board of Internal Revenue and CEO Lagos State Internal Revenue Service as a means of diverting billions of Naira which was first used as an alleged major source of fund for the APC campaign in the South West region of the country especially in the Ekiti and Osun state 2018 elections, then in the 2019 general election and currently also alleged to be the gameplan for the elections to be held in Kogi and Bayelsa State later this year.

A law firm Messrs Abdulai Taiwo, co-owned by Mr Akin Osibanjo the younger brother to the Vice President was also used as a conduit to divert funds in the same manner as the VP’s law firm with the funds generated allegedly used to fund party campaigns in the South West as well.

It would be recalled that on June 2019, a petition was written against the FIRS Boss Babatunde Fowler by a group who identified themselves as Concerned Staff of FIRS on his flagrant disobedience and violation of laid down processes, procedures and other fraudulent activities he allegedly perpetrated as the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

Calls placed to Fowler and Wahaab Gbadamos, the Head Communications and Servicom Department of FIRS were not answered neither did they reply SMS sent to them.