Fire in AGF’s office

The imposing multi-storey edifice housing the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), which is also referred to as ‘Treasury House’ in Abuja, suffered a fire out break last week, at the peak of the lockdown of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Most hit was the payments processing section of the building in […]

The imposing multi-storey edifice housing the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), which is also referred to as ‘Treasury House’ in Abuja, suffered a fire out break last week, at the peak of the lockdown of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Most hit was the payments processing section of the building in which is located the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), while the inferno took the combined efforts of several fire units to put off.

In his assessment of the incident after the fire was put out, the Minister of State for Finance, Clem Agba, assured that the damage from the incident did not include the critical electronic data storage unit, except for the cooling system which had since been restored. He allayed fears that critical financial documents were torched as, according to him, the OAGF operates a robust data back-up system.

Mr Agba’s clarification comes in good measure with respect to its timing and thrust, as the fire incident took many Nigerians by surprise, just as it also   attracted misgivings and conspiracy theories in many quarters. Some observers have queried the timing of the inferno which occurred in less than 24 hours after the Senate commenced investigations of the OAGF over matters connected with the Integrated Payroll Payment Information System (IPPIS).

It is easily recalled that the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) is presently locked in a face-off with the federal government over the issue.  Other programmes in respect of which the OAGF needs to come clear in the public domain, include the N60 billion earmarked for disbursement under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme, N596 billion Ecological Fund and the N12 billion monthly payment to the School Feeding Programme.

Public interest over a possible connection between the fire incident and the series of shenanigans in the OAGF draws from the lessons of history whereby in the past, some public institutions that find themselves under one probe or the other, often have their offices engulfed in fire incidents while documents and other evidence which are vital to the investigations simply go up in flames of such fires. It is in the same vein that this particular fire incident was considered by some observers as ‘suspicious’. Hence until Agba’s clarification came, the circumstances of the incident were anybody’s guess.

However now that normalcy seems to be restored, the challenges before the federal government fall into at least two dimensions. Firstly, is the need to investigate the proximate and remote causes of, and factors associated with the inferno. To be included in the investigation is an audit of the state of preventive measures in the premises before the ugly incident.

Beyond the foregoing is the need to ensure that the prospects of reoccurrence of such a dispensation not only in the OAGF but in all other public buildings across the country in future, is reduced to the barest minimum. The frequency and intensity of damage to public buildings in the country have assumed an unacceptable dimension, and need to be arrested. The mere circumstance that the country’s financial nerve centre has become a victim remains most reprehensible. Culprits identified as causative to such a development qualify in the eye of the law as economic saboteurs, who should have their day in court. And this particular incident should be handled as such.

In a similar context, the various investigations of the OAGF should be pursued with missionary zeal by all so assigned the tasks, given the sensitivity of the institution and its significance to the country. In any case, Mr Agba has promised that a full investigation of the development is underway. This leaves the country expectant of valid clarifications on why the fire took place, and the follow-up to the development.