Group Petitions NSA Over Alleged Extortion By Disbanded NATFORCE Officials
ABUJA – A civic group, the Coalition of Civil Society Network (CCSN) has written to Babagana Monguno, the National Security Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, about the alleged extortion of some Nigerians, particularly job seekers, by some officials of the National Task Force (NATFORCE).
In the letter dated December 9, 2022, and signed by its Deputy Coordinator, James Alfa, the coalition said it had in recent times received disturbing complaints from innocent Nigerians about the extortion carried out by officials of the National Task Force.
The letter obtained on Monday said, “These individuals were extorted of the sum of N100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) each by Alhaji Joseph, whom we learnt is the NATFORCE Human Resource Director.”
The coalition said Joseph issued his unsuspecting victims with NATFORCE employment letters and collected the said amount from them on several occasions.
“Sir, you will recall that you gave directives that NATFORCE is illegal and is banned from all operations in the country. But with disregard to your directives, Alhaji Joseph is still parading himself as the NATFORCE Human Resource Director and has gone ahead to sell employment letters to Innocent Nigerians.
“We have formally lodged a complaint to the Director General of NATFORCE, Dr. Baba Mohammed, but till now, we have not received any response from him or his office.
“We went to NATFORCE office situated at 13 Lord Lugard Crescent, Asokoro, FCT Abuja for two consecutive days, from 7th December, 2022 to 8th December, 2022 demanding that they refund the monies to the victims because NATFORCE is illegal and what they are perpetrating is a financial crime.
“The NATFORCE Director General is aware of these crimes but he chose to turn a blind eye to them.
“Sir, we kindly ask that you use your good office to intervene in this matter because NATFORCE officials are still parading themselves to still be in operation and are duping unsuspecting innocent Nigerians of their hard-earned money.” the letter stated.
The coalition further stated that it has duplicated of some of the NATFORCE employment letters that were issued out by Joseph which were back-dated to July 2, 2021, and a memory stick containing the video footage of the agitations of the victims.