The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has admitted that he is still a shareholder of New Planet Project Limited, a company that was a total amount of N438.1million by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under his suspended colleague, Betta Edu, for consultancy services.

On Monday it was reported that a company, New Planet Project Limited, was one of the numerous consultants awarded contracts from the N3billion given out by the suspended minister for the National Social Register contract.

The social register was created for cash transfers and other social investment programmes.

In a document posted by the editor of a media platform, Pointblank News, Jackson Ude, Tunji-Ojo’s New Planet Project Limited was initially paid N279 million for verification of the list and another N159 million for the same purpose.

An independent check revealed that the firm has the interior minister and his wife, Abimbola as directors.

One Gbadamasi Gbadamasi Clement is also listed as the secretary of the company which was registered on March 3, 2009, with registration number 804833.

The action is however against the Nigerian Constitution and Code of Conduct law.

Reacting during a session on Channels TV  on Monday, the Minister alleged that although he founded the company fifteen years ago, he had resigned his directorship in 2019 when he was elected as a member of the House of Representatives.

He said, “I’ve always said I came into public office with the commitment to base my service on sincerity of purpose and openness, obviously because I believe that Nigerians deserve to know and they don’t deserve to be kept in the dark in terms of public office operations. I have to say this very clearly. I saw it and actually I was shocked because the company in question was a company where I was a director.
“And about five years ago, I had resigned my directorship over five years ago. Yes, I founded the company fifteen years but in 2019 when I I got to the House of Reps, when I won election precisely, I did a change… this is it, certified true copy dated 2019, almost five years ago. I had resigned as director of the company. So I’m not a director. I resigned 1st of February 2019.”

The minister added that it was the responsibility of the Corporate Affairs Commission to update the details of its website.

He continued: “I’m not responsible for the updating of CAC website and it’s not my responsibility to update the website. But what is important and I can say that this is certified true copy that you can see there. That’s dated 2019. I came into public office knowing fully well that Nigerians will ask questions.

“I do not run the company. I don’t have knowledge of that. I’m not. I’m not a signatory to any account. I’m not a director of the company. I’m not involved in the day to day running of the organisation and the company is a limited liability company which is a private entity.  I’m not a director.

“How could I have done that? I’m minister of Interior, I am not Minister of Humanitarian.
On what basis will I do that? Is the company  not entitled to bid for anything? I am not minister of humanitarian. I am minister of interior. This company can never work under interior because there will be conflict of interest. That would be abuse of office. I never did that. And the company is a private entity.

“Of course (I am still a shareholder in the company) and to the best of my knowledge, public service rule does not prohibit public officers from being shareholders. What public service rules say is that you cannot be a director of which I’ve resigned about five years ago,” he added.