THE crises rocking the leadership of the United Nigerian Chaplaincy appears to have deepened, following an alleged threat to the life of the embattled Chaplain-General, Jide Jisos Josiah Ejie, who was recently released from prison custody on the orders of the court.
Ejie, who spent three months in detention, however, said he has been receiving threat phone calls and text messages since he regained his freedom.
According to him, his travails started when he sent auditors to the 20 state offices of the Chaplaincy in the country. He said some state officers, who allegedly embezzled as much as N43 million, felt threatened by the probe and began to unleash war of attrition on him.
Ejie pointed accusing finger to state officers in charge of Bayelsa, Delta, Enugu, Edo and Benue as brains behind the allegations against him.
These officers, he told journalists, ganged up to accuse him of collecting various sums of money, totaling N200 million, from them.
He said, the association has established processes of handling every issue, including money, which, according to him, makes it difficult for him to touch or request for money without going through the accounts officers, who should formally approve and issue receipts for such transactions.
Ejie said the false accusation was aimed at sweeping the staggering frauds discovered at the various branches under the carpet. According to him, it was discovered that, instead of collecting the stipulated standard charge of N32,000 from cadets for their training manuals, kits and other stated purposes, some of the states collected well above N100,000 from each of them.
He disclosed that the opulent lifestyle of most of the state officers, their mad acquisition of landed properties, houses, choice cars and other investments running into millions of Naira, whereas he, as Chaplain General, remain in rented building, speak volumes.
Ejie said when the lid of the secret was blown open, the officers ran to the police and the State Security Service (SSS) with spurious allegations for which he was variously arrested, charged and detained.
The Anambra State office of the SSS, he alleged, beat him into coma, the reason of which his legal team is now preparing to seek redress.
He accused the SSS of taking the laws into its hands by pronouncing suspects guilty in the name of investigation.
Ejie said his traducers have instituted more than 19 court cases against him just to cow him to toe their line of non-transparent leadership.
