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Two Senior Prisons Officials Sacked Due To Age, Are Younger Than Prisons Boss Ahmed Who Falsified His Own Age

The Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS) spokesman Francis Enobore announced that the Controller-General of the NPS, Ja’afaru Ahmed, “approved the retirement of a Deputy Controller-General and Assistant Controller-General” following an “emergency meeting” allegedly held on June 27th, 2016.

This announcement comes only days after SaharaReporters exclusively obtained documents showing that Mr. Ahmed falsified his age in order to continue being employed in the NPS. This is the latest in a series of scandals to rock the NPS including the escape of some prisoners from Abuja and the illegal hiring of 538 personnel. A SaharaReporters investigation into the illegally recruited members of the NPS found that around 68% of them were from 14 northern States.

SaharaReporters also found, through documents obtained from sources in the NPS, that in 2011 and 2012 Mr. Ahmed had his date of birth listed in official documents as July 21, 1957. However, in 2015, documents began to show that he was born two years later—on July 21, 1959—thus prolonging the length of his employment.

During this “emergency meeting,” which was not elaborated on in Mr. Enobore’s press statement, Aminu Suley, and Ali Bala Salami were retired by Mr. Ahmed. According to the same documents used to show how Mr. Ahmed falsified his age, Mr. Suley’s birthday is listed as September 1, 1958, with an appointment to the NPS on November 29, 1982. Mr. Salami, according to these same documents, was born on August 25, 1959, and appointed to the NPS on August 22, 1984.

This means that both Mr. Suley and Mr. Salami are younger than Mr. Ahmed, had his birthday not suddenly changed as he neared retirement. Mr. Suley would be two years, one month, and 4 days younger than Mr. Ahmed. Mr. Salami would be one year, two months, and twenty days younger than Mr. Ahmed.

Mr. Enobore’s statement also said that “the decision was taken due to the officers’ seniority in service to the new Controller-General of Prisons and in consonance with military and paramilitary convention.”

The latest revelation shows that if Ahmed had not falsified his age, he was younger than the two officials he fired yesterday. Mr. Enobore was not available to take SaharaReporters’ call by the time of publication.

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