Yemi Osinbajo, Acting President, has “stepped down” the nomination of  Maimuna Aliyu and Sa’ad Alanamu to the board of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC).

The action follows an exclusive report by the ICIR that two of the 14 members announced to the ICPC board were being investigated by the anti-corruption agency for alleged corruption in the region of N1billion.

Announcing the withdrawal of the two nominees on Sunday, Laolu Akande, the VP’s spokesman, said the “ongoing investigation issues” of Aliyu and Alanamu with the commission “present a conflict”.

“We are stepping down 2 of the new ICPC board nominees who have ongoing investigation issues with the commission as this presents a conflict,” read the statement.

“While existence of allegations or petitions against someone should not necessarily disqualify them from considerations for appointments, this case presents a peculiarity as we have confirmed that the agency in which they are to serve is indeed investigating the two of them.

“A basic check showed no court convictions against them. But when weighty petitions come up, this administration will always do the right thing.”

Charges were already being prepared against Aliyu, a former Executive Director of the Aso Savings and Loans, by the ICPC in preparation to taking her to court when her name was announced as a member of the new board of the commission.

Apart from the ICPC investigation, the ICIR’s investigations showed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Police had investigated several corruption cases against her.

In May, a police investigative report indicted her and recommended her for prosecution, for “illegally converting to personal use”, a total of N58 million being proceeds of three plots of land belonging to her employers, Aso Savings and Loans.

It was also alleged that Aliyu actually sold the three plots of land entrusted to her by the bank at N40 million each (instead of N19 million) totaling N120 million and held on to every penny.

Apart from the N120 million allegedly misappropriated by her, the bank also lodged several complaints of abuse of office and conversion or diversion of its funds, totaling nearly N1 billion.

However, since 2013 when she left the bank, Aliyu has refused to hand over the four houses and has not serviced the mortgage on them. In fact, investigators believe that she has since sold the units and pocketed the money.

The bank also alleged that Aliyu abused her office by illegally allocating a house at Aso Groove Estate to her son, Sand Aliyu. According to the bank, Aliyu had showed interest in buying the house for her son in the name of a company in which he is a director. However, because she had all the keys of the houses put up for sale by the bank since she was in charge of marketing and sales, Aliyu handed over the key to the house to her son without paying a dime for the house worth N210 million. She still has not paid for the house till date and her son continues to live there.

Alanamu is being investigated by the ICPC for corruption and bribery. He allegedly collected bribes from contractors handling TETFUND contracts, which he approved as Chairman of the Board of Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin.

As exclusively reported by the ICIR, both candidates made the board in the first place because the federal government announced their nomination without running security checks on them.