NiDCOM Audit: Beyond 13 Queries, A Deeper Governance Failure

The Traffic NG

September 21, 2026
11 min read
Collins NWEKE NiDCOM

The Auditor-General’s observations concerning the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission NiDCOM, raise an institutional risk that extends beyond the individual transactions cited. The report records 13 observations covering financial reporting, procurement, supporting documentation, payments, tax compliance, cash advances and asset verification.

It also records no management response against each observation. These entries are not findings of criminal guilt, and the Commission and affected officials retain the right to provide records and explanations through the appropriate oversight process.

Collins Nweke argues that the wider governance concern is NiDCOM’s continued operation without the Governing Board contemplated by its establishing law. A board would not guarantee compliance or remove management responsibility, but an effective one would create recurring scrutiny of management accounts, audited statements, procurement exceptions, internal controls and responses to audit queries. Its absence leaves an important statutory layer of oversight incomplete.

The immediate priorities are documentary and institutional. NiDCOM should respond to each observation with verifiable records, submit outstanding financial statements, recover any sums properly established as due, and implement a time-bound remediation plan. The President should also constitute a competent and independent Governing Board. Completing this governance architecture would support public accountability and protect the credibility of an institution expected to mobilise diaspora participation in national development.

The audit observations concerning NiDCOM should not become another contest between personalities. They should compel Nigeria to confront a deeper institutional failure. A public commission established by law has been allowed to operate for years without the Governing Board designed to oversee its administration, accounts and strategic direction.

The recent observations of the Auditor-General for the Federation concerning the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission demand a careful and responsible response. They should neither be trivialised nor sensationalised. An audit observation is not a criminal conviction. It does not, by itself, establish personal dishonesty or guilt. The Commission and every official mentioned or affected must be afforded the opportunity to produce records, explain transactions and respond through the institutions constitutionally empowered to examine public expenditure.

At the same time, these are not anonymous allegations circulating on social media. They form part of an official report of the Auditor-General for the Federation, transmitted to the National Assembly pursuant to section 85 of the Constitution. The appropriate response is therefore neither condemnation without due process nor defensiveness without documentation. It is institutional accountability.

According to the report, the 13 observations concerning NiDCOM cover matters including the non-submission of audited financial statements, emergency procurement without the required certification, contract splitting, questions about contractors’ statutory documentation and financial capacity, lack of evidence supporting the execution of certain contracts, overpayments, tax and electronic-payment breaches, misapplication of funds, excessive cash advances and vehicles that were not presented for physical verification. Some of these observations may ultimately be explained.

Others may require corrective action, recovery of funds or sanctions by the appropriate authorities. That determination belongs to the Auditor-General, the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly and other competent institutions, not to social media.

One feature of the report should concern anyone committed to accountable government. For each of the 13 observations, management recorded “No response.” The matter therefore moves beyond individual transactions and exposes a governance gap.

A Governing Board Is Not Decorative

The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission Establishment Act 2017 provides for a Governing Board responsible for the general administration of the Commission. Its statutory responsibilities include important oversight relating to policy, management accounts and audited accounts. Yet the Governing Board contemplated by the law has not been constituted and operationalised.

We should be careful not to claim that the mere existence of a board would automatically have prevented every issue identified by the Auditor-General. Boards can be ineffective. They can be politicised, passive or captured by management. A governing board is therefore not an automatic insurance policy against administrative failure. But an effective board creates structured points of scrutiny that do not otherwise exist. It requires management to present and interrogate accounts.

It can establish finance, audit and procurement committees. It can demand explanations for departures from approved procedures. It can require implementation of internal audit recommendations. It can track whether audited financial statements have been prepared and submitted on time. It can insist that external auditors receive complete and prompt responses to queries.

In other words, the board does not execute contracts or process payments. That remains the responsibility of management. Its purpose is to ensure that those exercising executive authority do not operate without structured, independent and recurring oversight.

The audit observations can consequently be understood through three stages: prevention, mitigation and response.

At the prevention stage, a functional Governing Board could have approved clear procurement and financial-control policies, monitored compliance and required periodic reporting on exceptions. Contract splitting, emergency procurement, cash advances, contractor qualification and movement between expenditure heads should all have been visible within a properly functioning control environment.

At the mitigation stage, regular management accounts, internal audit reports, asset registers and procurement reviews could have detected irregularities before they accumulated into thirteen external audit observations. Questions about overpayments, deductions, supporting documents and missing vehicles should not have had to await the Auditor-General’s intervention.

At the response stage, a board could have demanded that every audit query be assigned, documented and answered within a fixed period. The repeated entry of “No response” might then have been avoided or, at the very least, responsibility for the institutional failure to respond would have been clearly established.

That is the practical value of governance. It creates several opportunities to stop a mistake from becoming a pattern and a pattern from becoming a crisis.

What Leadership Should Do When the Board Is Absent

The power to appoint NiDCOM’s Governing Board rests with the President, and the National Assembly has previously called for its constitution. The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Commission cannot constitute the statutory board by personal decision. But that fact should not become a cover behind which executive leadership escapes scrutiny.

If I were the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NiDCOM, and if I genuinely regarded the Governing Board as a necessity rather than an inconvenience, I would make its constitution a documented institutional priority.

I would formally and repeatedly advise the Presidency and the appropriate supervising authorities that the Commission was operating with an incomplete governance architecture. I would place those representations on record and include the continued absence of the Board as a governance risk in the Commission’s annual reports.

I would seek meetings with the relevant offices, submit proposed timelines and follow up until the matter received a formal response. Where permissible, I would request that the issue be reflected in budget-defence and legislative-oversight proceedings so that the absence of the Board remained visible to those responsible for public accountability.

I would also ensure that the Commission’s management did not behave as though the absence of a board had removed the obligation of scrutiny. Internal audit, procurement planning, asset verification, financial reporting and responses to audit queries would receive greater, not lesser attention.

Pending the President’s action, I would strengthen every lawful internal control available to management. I might also seek structured external professional advice on audit and governance, while making it absolutely clear that no informal or advisory arrangement could replace the Governing Board created by an Act of the National Assembly.

Most importantly, I would not celebrate the absence of a board as freedom from interference. I would treat it as an institutional vulnerability. A chief executive who truly believes in a board should be able to demonstrate the steps taken to secure one.

What Consensus-Based Oversight Taught Me

My conviction about the importance of collective oversight is informed not only by theory but also by experience. During my time in local government leadership in Belgium, I had the privilege of serving in the highest decision-making organ for social welfare matters under two chairpersons of different political persuasions. The membership of that organ was constituted along political-party lines, with representatives seconded by their respective caucuses.

One chairperson rarely saw beyond party lines. The other was remarkably party-blind. Under the party-blind leader, there was visible camaraderie across political divisions. Consensus was not always immediate, but it was consistently sought. Members asked difficult questions without treating every disagreement as hostility.

Decisions were better tested, more broadly owned and less vulnerable to legal contestation. That experience taught me that plural oversight need not weaken executive authority. Properly led, it improves the quality, legitimacy and durability of decisions.

A Governing Board for NiDCOM should operate in that spirit. It should not become an arena for partisan obstruction or personal rivalry. Nor should it be populated merely to reward political loyalty. It should bring together people capable of exercising independent judgement, including credible diaspora representation and expertise in public finance, law, institutional governance, diplomacy and diaspora affairs.

The objective should be constructive challenge: asking questions management may overlook, ensuring decisions comply with the law, and building collective ownership of the Commission’s strategic direction.

Strengthening, Not Undermining, NiDCOM

Nigerians in the diaspora advocated for many years for a dedicated national institution capable of coordinating diaspora engagement. NiDCOM is an important product of that struggle. Its establishment recognised that Nigerians abroad are not simply sources of remittances but strategic partners in national development.

Because the Commission matters, its governance must be completed. Earlier concerns about institutional oversight at NiDCOM reinforce the need for a durable governance structure.

Defending NiDCOM cannot mean shielding it from scrutiny. The strongest defence of the Commission is to ensure that its records are complete, its procurement is compliant, its accounts are submitted on time and its responses to constitutional audit institutions are prompt and verifiable.

Similarly, criticism arising from an audit observation should not be interpreted as hostility towards the Commission or its leadership. Institutions are strengthened when weaknesses are identified and corrected. They are weakened when legitimate concerns are personalised, politicised or dismissed.

The immediate course of action should therefore be straightforward. NiDCOM should produce the contracts, vouchers, approvals, delivery records, asset registers and other documents required to answer each observation. Outstanding financial statements should be submitted. Where funds are found to be recoverable, they should be recovered and remitted.

Where documentation establishes that expenditure was properly authorised and executed, that should equally be recognised. The Commission should also establish a time-bound audit-remediation plan, stating the action required on each observation, the responsible officer and the completion date. Progress should be reported to the appropriate oversight institutions.

Above all, the President should urgently constitute NiDCOM’s Governing Board, with members possessing the independence, competence and diaspora credibility required to perform the role contemplated by law. This controversy must not end with explanations about 13 audit observations. Nigeria should use it to correct the governance condition that allowed concerns of this magnitude to arise, remain unanswered and reach the Auditor-General without the benefit of a fully functioning statutory oversight structure.

The principle is straightforward. No public institution should be expected to deliver its mandate while an essential part of its lawful governance architecture remains missing. NiDCOM should produce the records, answer the observations and implement the recommendations, while the President constitutes the Board.

These measures would protect the Commission’s mission, restore confidence and help build the accountable diaspora institution that Nigerians at home and abroad deserve.

About the AUTHOR

Collins NWEKE is an International Trade Consultant & Economic Diplomacy researcher. He was a former Green Councillor at Ostend City Council, Belgium, where he served three consecutive terms until December 2024. A first-generation migrant who transitioned from civil society activism into elected office, he writes frequently on democracy, governance, and Africa–Europe relations. He is the author of the book ‘Economic Diplomacy of the Diaspora’. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the International Association of Research Scholars and Administrators and serves on its Governing Council. A columnist for The Brussels Times, Proshare, and Global Affairs Analyst with a host of media houses, Collins writes from Brussels, Belgium. X: @collinsnweke E: admin@collinsnweke.eu W: www.collinsnweke.eu

NiDCOM Audit: Beyond 13 Queries, A Deeper Governance Failure

The Traffic NG

The Traffic NG

Categories

Search

Recent Post

Tinubu Extends Europe Stay, Returns Weekend

Diphtheria: Why Preventable Diseases Keep Killing Nigerians

Nigeria’s Aviation Boom Faces a Reality Check

Featured Videos

Popular Categories

Useful Links

Follow us

NiDCOM Audit: Beyond 13 Queries, A Deeper Governance Failure

Categories

Search

Recent Post

Never Miss A Post!

Featured Videos

All Tags

Related Posts

Popular Categories

Useful Links

Never Miss A Post!

Follow us