By Francis Nansak,Lafia

Following last year indictment of some staff of Federal Medical Center Keffi for alleged job racketeering and other offenses, Nine persons who were suspected to have committed various offenses were tried .

Among those that were tried through a committee that was headed by the Medical Director of the FMC keffi, one person was found not guilty , two staff bagged termination and dismissal from public service respectively , while Six others are under suspension and detention untill proven otherwise.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday in his office at FMC keffi, the medical director , Dr, Yahaya Baba said an investigative committee was set up to look into the matter and that the committee consisted himself as chairman with the involvement of the representative of the Minister for health and that of the state minister for health, others are the federal character commission representative, after which recommendation was made to the federal ministry that found one person not guilty and he has since been reinstated to office.

In his words ” I did promised you sometimes that on the issue of job racketeering ,we are going to set up an investigative committee, it will interest you to know that investigation has been done,we perceived and those who were found to have some questions to answer were presented before the senior staff disciplinary committee.The senior staff disciplinary committee consisted of myself as the chairman of the committee and other statutory members of the committee, plus the representative of the Honourable Minister of Health who usually comes the office of director hospital services and a director in the office of human resources.

” And also a representative of the honourable minister of state for health was part of the disciplinary committee.And I think, I can’t remember federal character representative was also in that committee, so they look into their cases, the union was also there as observer,so it was an open door investigation.When we finished we wrote our recommendation and forwarded to the honourable minister because there was no board on ground and he modified some of our recommendation.it is not only those who were involved in the job racketeering that were tried” He said.

The medical Director further stated that apart from those involved in job racketeering, there were other staff who were tried and a final decision was taken by the honourable minister and sent back for actions to be implemented as directed by the minister .

He further added that there are two others who are currently on suspension and in jail because they are having a court case in Lafia.

Dr Yahaya pointed out that there is Peter Dare who is directly linked in connection to collecting the monies ,but is at large and one other who however claimed that the transaction he did was not in connection with the racketeering.

” So those that the ministry found not guilty ,which just one person was asked to resume work untill anything incriminating is found on him.

” The main guy who collected the monies is now at large and we ve asked the DSS and the police CID to help us tracked him” He added.