Retired Col. Muhammad Mustapha Abdallah, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA)

An ICT firm, Emplug Ltd. has clarified its relationship with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA’s Chairman, Col. Muhammad Abdallah, following its link with alleged N100 million corruption racket in the ongoing recruitment by the agency.

Mr Azunna Chukwu, the Chief Executive Officer of the firm denied claims that the company was out to swindle the NDLEA of N100 million in the exercise, describing the allegation as misguided and defamation of character.

According to him, the N45 million contract given to the firm to carry out the recruitment for the anti-drug law agency, passed through NDLEA Tenders Board for consideration before the contract was issued.

He said that close to 400, 000 Nigerians applied as recorded in the firm’s portal, and it had submitted same based on gender, states and local government identification within 24 hours of closure of the application of the portal.

“The requirement that the applicant should not be above 30 years was further submitted two days after the first report, these reports can be verified with the NDLEA as we are not permitted to disclose its full details currently.

“A painstaking manual screening of each prequalified applicant for the upcoming CBT is ongoing at Emplug with data officers working day and night to ensure the NDLEA management directive that all Nigerians are given an equal opportunity across all states and FCT to take Computer Based Test (CBT).

“This effort to bring the image of Emplug Ltd to disrepute is the result of a failed blackmail and extortionist attempts by some envious and disgruntled persons within the NDLEA.

“We were shocked that these newspapers could not even call Emplug whose numbers are in the public domain before publishing this falsehood, we urge the public to disregard the falsehood in its entirety,” he stressed.

Emplug CEO said that the entire action was intentional and a calculated attempt to smear the image of the firm, adding that the firm had initiated a legal action against the newspapers involved.

According to him, the ICT firm, an independent organisation was only engaged as a consultant by NDLEA to handle the ongoing recruitment on its portal.

He added that there was no connection of ownership between the two parties, contrary to the allegation recently published in some sections of the media.

Chukwu told journalists at a news conference on Saturday in Abuja that Col. Abdallah and Mr Yohanna-Silas Mshelia, the Director of Admin and Finance in NDLEA are not the owners of Emplug Ltd. as it is being circulated in the public space.