NPA Fraud: EFCC Launches Manhunt for Bode George


Indications emerged at the weekend that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), under its new chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri may have launched an intense manhunt for former Board Chairman, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Chief Olabode Ibiyinka George, over alleged N84billion financial improprieties perpetrated during his period as chairman of the parastatal.
THISDAY learnt last night that George’s case is inclusive of the many such high profile cases the commission is presently working on. Majority of such cases, THISDAY gathered were those left midway by the former administration at the commission.
A source who spoke to THISDAY under the condition of anonymity explained that the new leadership at EFCC has resolved to disappoint cynics who never believed in the competence of its chairman to successfully lead the “brand new EFCC”, adding that “the only way she can do this is to pursue those high profile cases that the former administration refused to prosecute”.
Specifically, the case of NPA which is said to be embarrassing the commission because of its handling by the former administration has been slated for review. “Not just the NPA case, every such case has been propped up for thorough investigation and there is no going back”.
However, following a tip-off, THISDAY gleaned that George has since left the country and has refused to come home to confront the allegations against him. Although, he was said to have sneaked in and out of the country recently, George is said never to have stayed out of the country this long except during the reign of former maximum ruler, late Gen. Sani Abacha.
When contacted, EFCC spokesperson, Mr. Femi Babafemi who was not going to go into details of the commission’s plans on its latest onslaught confirmed plans by the commission to open up cases classified as high profile of which he said NPA may not be unlikely. He said the commission is presently working on such cases, but details, he did not have.
“We have a lot of high profile cases we are presently working on and his (George’s) own is not unlikely to be one of them”, he said urging the media to patiently await the commission’s next outing.
Twice, committees were set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to investigate alleged fraud at NPA between 2001 and 2003 when George was the Board chairman. Both committees reportedly nailed the George-led NPA Board over what was described as mindless looting of the NPA.
In 2003, a committee was constituted by the president. The committee was headed by Mr. Mustapha Bukar from the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation. His report indicted the George-led Board and Management of the NPA for large scale fraud.
But George was quick to dismissing the report as a “smear campaign”. Although he did not offer explanation to the committee’s emphasis that “rather than follow the normal channel of assigning responsibilities in the authority, the board, management, politicians and even the contractors resorted to using all kinds of ways to process contract proposals, thereby short-circuiting existing regulations and procedures.”
The Bukar’s report was however believed to have instigated The NEWS Magazine story on the scam at NPA. The NEWS edition of April 18, 2005, had given an account of how the board and management of NPA between 2001 and 2003, embarked on irresponsible spending, through fraud-ridden contracts, to bleed the authority of billions of naira and millions of dollars, pounds sterling and euros. But George has since taken The NEWS Magazine to court for alleged character assassination over its reportage of the alleged scam. The case is yet to be dispensed with.
It was against the backdrop of the noise generated by The NEWS report that the former president asked Ribadu to do a thorough job of investigating the NPA fraud scandal. Ribadu was assisted by You.J. Shuwa of the Federal Ministry of Transport; M.A. Bello from the Office of the Secretary to the Federal Government; J.O. Omotosho, representing the Ministry of Finance; Buba Gamawa, who works with the Head of the Federal Civil Service and Y.A. Olaleye of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit. Mrs. G.O. Ezekika of the Federal Ministry of Transport was the committee’s secretary.
The committee was mandated to conduct “an in-depth investigation on all contracts awarded by the NPA from 2001 to 2003, and examine all outstanding bills from its creditors; ascertain whether or not such contracts were awarded in accordance with extant government rules and regulations governing the award of contracts; and identify the culprits and apportion blame as applicable.”
While submitting its committee’s report to the president on Tuesday, February 21, 2006, Ribadu, was said to have established that “the board and management of NPA, during the period under review, are responsible for the flagrant violation of the extant government rules and regulations on award of contracts,” thus confirming the board and management’s “financial recklessness, disregard for Due Process guidelines, gross and massive inflation of contract prices and excessive contract splitting”.
The Ribadu report further noted that “the NPA is regarded as one of the parastatals where irregularities and malpractices have become deeply entrenched”. It also said among several discoveries that the NPA is plagued with massive corruption and inefficiency, especially in the award of contracts.

http://www.ngex.com/cgi-bin/frame/frameit2.plx?link="http://www.thisdayonline.com"

when is Waziri going after Babangida? I'm tired of all these "intense manhunts" that curiously seem to focus solely on people of southern Nigerian extraction.

davidylan:

when is Waziri going after Babangida? I'm tired of all these "intense manhunts" that curiously seem to focus solely on people of southern Nigerian extraction.

I guess Gov Boatmang of Plateau State is one those people from the south

A source who spoke to THISDAY under the condition of anonymity explained that the new leadership at EFCC has resolved to disappoint cynics who never believed in the competence of its chairman to successfully lead the “brand new EFCC”, adding that “the only way she can do this is to pursue those high profile cases that the former administration refused to prosecute”.

How convenient, they have chosen to abandon cases involving those that nominated them like Ibori and instead have decided to focus on other high profile cases.

Nigeria is in serious problem.

deor03, yes poor plateau people should be pick up abi,  he was there for only 5 month, 
  here is my question , everybody in nigeria know the nigeria police,  waziri was in that corrupt police force. do you want to tell me waziri never collected egunje as a police office in nigeria.  please can my beautiful waziri answer that question. i really want to know. email me info@.com  na question o my beautiful lady waziri.

come to think of it, if you want an efcc officer to arrest, walahi, it better be beautiful waziri. na joke


you sure say , that many men in nigeria are now written the efcc and asking efcc to send beautiful waziri to come and arrest them.  that application would jump to 30,000,000 in 3 days. 30,000,000 men are corrupt in nigeria, if the arresting officer is waziri wa yo. ko ka kaba.

IBB mansion

http://.com/smf/index.php/topic,7229.0.html

@Nigeria 1: please, slow down before you hurt yourself.

First, I'm not sure if the link or pictures of IBB mansion you've posted is correct. Don't be lazy, you can do much better.

Second, could you please identify one single Nigerian public official that isn't corrupt?

And finally, if moving Nigeria forward is our goal, then we must be sensible enough to give our complete support to EFCC. It shouldn't be about Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo. It should be about discovering an effective strategy to bring back this Giant of Africa.
Waziri has taken over not even 3 months as yet and we've already started to witness progress and professionalism at its best. We need to simmer down, quit being too judgmental and allow this incredible lady to perform her duties.

One thing is for sure; we wouldn't have witnessed this new development if Ribadu was still the chairman of EFCC.
The past is past; let us focus on the present and future.

This is the only way!

My brother like I have been saying EFCC is bias. You can not have a justice system without reform of the system.  We have to reform the system first. What we have is new wine in old bottle. If we change everything and everyman is held accountable. No only people from the south. Dont tell me they pick people from Plateau, why all know why.

First of all , if you want a reform. Let allow state to start start police. We could initially start all state police without arm,  Like some police officer in london. We can not fight crime with federal police. Everywhere in the world, everybody have state police. If we start. They do not have to carry arms or guns. batton would be better. And they can enforce state laws. There are more state laws than federal over here.

Http://.com

Which kind of limp defense or justification for EFCC is this one? These threads are quite amusing because of the way people post as if there is some kind of general amnesia. With the way people use such to somehow praise the EFCC or whatever is just nothing short of amusing. "intense manhunt". So were we not all also hearing news about Ibori, Iyabo, Odilli, Uzor Kalu, etc? Are any of them behind bars today? Any convictions? So how is this different? When someone has been handed a long prison sentence and money is retrieved then that would be news worthy.

@davidylan to be honest i really couldn't care less where the people targeted come from. If all the EFCC wants to target is non Northerners as you claim i really am not that bothered as long as the people being targeted are corrupt and have something to answer for, you speak as if innocent bystanders as opposed to corrupt looters and robbers are being targeted. I am still confused as to why people want to be so quick to defend thieves. A thief is a thief, wether from the north or south or east or west. I also don't understand how people can't see that if people from "your area" are targeted then that is not such a bad thing, if this means that appointed leaders from such areas out of fear of being a victim of the so called "selective justice" begin to spend money delegated for development on actual development and their is a reduction in corruption, then what on earth are people shouting for? It just seems to me that once again tribalism is clouding people from seeing this or is there something that i am not seeing? If the EFCC refuses to target people from the north as you claim, then please to whose detriment is it really?

Sky , we care. Over here the police is not allowed to racial profile a person. And the EFCC is ethnics profile for ethnics clearing. Here is where the problem. Chief bode george was chairman of board. He held no executive power in NPA. NPA is run by the MD . Board are just figure head. Why did the EFCC not go after all the MD of NPA, I would note that from 1980 to 2008. Northerner have always been MD. None of them was arrested by EFCC.

We know this is a political move. What EFCC has made chief bode George is a political victim. Which is not good for democracy. Remember Huntu and Tunsi. Another issue is that Chief Bode George is the unofficial head of the Yorubas in the PDP. It is an insult to PDP members that are Yorubas.

Nigeria1;;:

Sky , we care. Over here the police is not allowed to racial profile a person. And the EFCC is ethnics profile for ethnics clearing. Here is where the problem. Chief bode george was chairman of board. He held no executive power in NPA. NPA is run by the MD . Board are just figure head. Why did the EFCC not go after all the MD of NPA, I would note that from 1980 to 2008. Northerner have always been MD. None of them was arrested by EFCC.

We know this is a political move. What EFCC has made chief bode George is a political victim. Which is not good for democracy. Remember Huntu and Tunsi. Another issue is that Chief Bode George is the unofficial head of the Yorubas in the PDP. It is an insult to PDP members that are Yorubas.

Sorry but this is a weak arguement. Bode George was charman of board and you are saying he held no executive power? Is that not just a contradiction? That is like saying CEOs of companies hold no power and it is all in the hands of the MDs which is simply not true. You care about which thief is arrested and where such is from (i am not surprised given the line of reasoning you tow with all arguements i have seen you in) but i don't care and i have stated why so please speak for yourself without feeling the need to use pronouns like "we" as a means to justiify your stance. And please don't come back to post satellite pictures that hold no relevance to the topic at hand, i am really not interested , you did not have to respond to my post and i wish you didn't.

another fruitless manhunt leading nowhere what about the backlog cases still pending . if i were a fraudster in Nigeria i wouldnot worry to much about been caught cause i know three days later i would be free.

Forget about the ethnic divide. Bode George deserves to be tried infact all those OBJ cronies should be tried and Jailed

dayokanu:

Forget about the ethnic divide. Bode George deserves to be tried infact all those OBJ cronies should be tried and Jailed

You cannot try all those OBJ cronies without OBJ himself and to try OBJ is the last thing that will happen. Everybody is just bitting around the bush
nothing will come out of all this trials. Its just another way to loot public fund. Nigeria as a nation has failed in all remification.
State police will not solve anything, Revolution will solve nada,

A referendum on the way forward is what we need but it will not happen

To put it best Odua Nation, Arewa Nation and Biafraland is what we need.

Anything short of this isn't going to work. They will continue probing till Yaradua tenure is finished and nothing will come out of it.

Why I dont support breakups is that you would never have an end to it. We are a people too diverse. Where would the Nuger Delta be Niger Delta country? Put Urhobo, Itsekiri and ijaw in the same country

. . . and to know that madam Waziri has a Senator as a husband is very discouraging. This is the string that corrupt politicians will always use to tie and gagg her up cos no Nigerian politician is clean

dayokanu:

Why I don't support breakups is that you would never have an end to it. We are a people too diverse. Where would the Nuger Delta be Niger Delta country? Put Urhobo, Itsekiri and ijaw in the same country

These people can stay on their own, after all whats the population of Luxembourg. Breakup is the best thing for nigeria. We all no longer have faith in that name and the sooner we achieve this the better for us.

FYI: The governors are determined to continuously implicate OBJ in illegal activities during their trials; therefore, preserve your energy for better things and do not expect much.

It is what it is; OBJ's named being mentioned during any of these trials is the same as a blind alley.

Trust me, OBJ wasn't stupid when he went out of his way to aggressively force Yar'Adua to become his successor and pick Goodluck as the VP.
1. Yar'Adua as a Northerner can be trusted and deceiving others is not part of his character.

2. Goodluck on the other hand is more or less a powerless entity; he can certainly be controlled with less effort.

So, let us stop fooling ourselves, nothing fruitful will come out of most of these cases.

But at least it is very courageous to actually go after these cronies; my respect goes to Waziri for doing all the things Ribadu didn't have balls to do.

This Nigeria1 thinks his personal conjectures is a good argument point without need for facts and figures.

Abeg let EFCC only probe those from my village for all I care. A thief is a thief.

@BIGB1 you need to stop spreading this fake crusade of patriotism and professionalism of EFCC.

Charity they said begins at home and if Nigeria must move forward and if we want transparency, equality and honesty.

Then we must try BABANGIDA for the $12 billion gulf oil windfall.

Not until this evil genius comes out and tell the whole world why he declined to honor the OKIGBO and OPUTA panel indictment.

WAZIRI AND YAR ADULL can camouflage and go after all this small fishes in the ocean. But the root cause of corruption in Nigerian must be made accountable at all cost.

IBB should be summoned with immediate effect to answer all the pending questions

Chery-picking Justice

Prosecute IBB for all his crimes and if found wanting and looting. Lets hand his saggy balls on coconut tree.

Then go after any public official, that to me in justice serve.

Amazing how this BUSH boy BIGB1 comes here and preach but publicly condemn RIBADU and OBJ for selective justice.

Please tell us what vested interest do you have in your fathers ill gotten wealth that makes you think the man is clean as a whistle?

Sorry sky, you need to go and find out how nigeria company runs. Chairman of board are just mere political appointment. They have too to know power. The MD control the company. And I should know. I know alot about the NPA. I come from a marine family. All of the money taken by people with NPA, were done by NORTHERNER. I would start posting name and contract of northerner involve over the internet. If i can reach some of my old contact. 90% of this contract were awarded by northerner to Northerners. The same goes for the aviation industry. This are fact.

Bode George is a thief, whether na yoruba thief, ibo thief or Ijaw thief, he should be prosecuted.

There is no way a board chairman will not be involved in corruption - if you need to approve a contract (approved by the board) and the chairman comes to you and says 'if you don't pad the deal by 10billion for me and the directors to share, we won't approve it' then he is as corrupt as anyone else.

Nigeria1 should stop talking like we don't know how these things work.

@ Skyblue

I'm not holding brief for the EFCC, but regarding the cases in court, you know naija politicians - objections, preliminary objections, appeals and the like will be used to delay and prolong the trials for long periods; there is little the EFCC can do to prevent that except remaining on the job and continuing to press for prosecution.

The issue of monies retrieved - Alams got a lot retrieved from him, and others have too. But on the issue of 'long' sentences, the problem with that lies within the criminal code - some of these offences don't have the long sentences you would expect. I think there is little or nothing the EFCC can do about that.

As long it is a Nigerian that rules Nigeria, Babaginda can NEVER be prosecuted.

bode is a big thief and he had remained untouchable.
i wish they will bring him down .
from the way things are going, i think the big fish will be on the row sooner than later.

let look at the list of MD at the NPA. Apart from sarumi who was MD, All NPA MD if I remember very well since 1980 have been northerner. So also for everybody in Aviation.  So the corrupt people in the NPA and Aviation are northerner.

Mallam Abdulsalam Mohammed
Engineer Wail Ahmed
Alhaji. Aminu Dabo
Mallam Gwandu
Mallam Bello Ibrahim

What we are saying is that this is ethnics clearing. And ethics clearing lead to the HUNTU AND Tutsi war.  people have started to believe that britain is about to join hand and help in ethnics clearing. They claim Niger delta problem is cause by some white people they arrested . That is nonsense. Were the white people also responsible for bombing the vice president house. The ijaws did it.  Were the white people responsible for kidnapping other white people. The ijaws did it. People believe Britain is sending the wrong signal that it is part of ethnics clearing.

stop diverting issues my friend, Bode George had to sign off on contracts did he not? if he signed off on inflated contracts, then he is as culpable as any of the MD's. I don't care if all the MD's of NPA were from Potiskum, that takes nothing away from Bode George's criminality.

ethnic cleansing my foot. Botmang is in the dock for stealing, is that ethnic cleansing? Alao-Akala despite the documented contract inflation he did in Oyo state is still governor, how come he isn't being 'cleansed'? You people will find the most asinine of excuses to allow corrupt people get away.

Whether they are Hausa or Yoruba or anything else, their stealing hurts ALL NIGERIANS. The fact that one thief has not been caught doesn't mean we shouldn't fry this particular one.

Lets even leave Babangida for a moment, lets catch the 'smaller' fish first and set an example for future occupants of office.

You do not understand how the system works. So what you are saying is that President Yar Adua sign all the contract. If he did, did he sign the contract in the N30B transfer on december 26 by one of his minister. Figure head my brother , any board appoint. Why are you defencing this corrupt MD. Let the EFCC go ahead and arrest all the men listed above. And then We can talk about Bode George later, If not no more discussion.

ethnic cleansing my foot. Botmang is in the dock for stealing, is that ethnic cleansing? Alao-Akala despite the documented contract inflation he did in Oyo state is still governor, how come he isn't being 'cleansed'? You people will find the most asinine of excuses to allow corrupt people get away.

Nigerians do not know what they want.
This is why politicians continue to take us for a long ride without any hesitation; they understand our brainsick mentality.

Nigeria1;;:

Sorry sky, you need to go and find out how nigeria company runs. Chairman of board are just mere political appointment. They have too to know power. The MD control the company. And I should know. I know alot about the NPA. I come from a marine family. All of the money taken by people with NPA, were done by NORTHERNER. I would start posting name and contract of northerner involve over the internet. If i can reach some of my old contact. 90% of this contract were awarded by northerner to Northerners. The same goes for the aviation industry. This are fact.

LOL, ok oh Nigeria1. I am not going to write any thing out of frustration because i have simply come to learn or believe that arguing with you is absolutely futile and you always use thesame line, always: tribal sentiments. Take it or leave it does not matter either way, but you write a lot and ultimately always say thesame thing and use thesame tribal lines for everything. Can't you for once see an injustice or something that is wrong and stand against it instead of making continuous excuses for such? Believe whatever you want to believe, according to you CEOs have no power and are just "figure heads", whatever. If you want to continue to make excuses for such things with such weak sentiments while people suffer then that is up to you, i won't waste my energy.

P.S: we have had this talk how many times now, please don't feel the need to respond to my posts, really, was expecting to see your award winning satellite maps. Have a nice day.

@topic
story story,they are just using olabode george manhunt to deflect attention from them ibori saraki and co,nuifn will come out of it,olabode gearge will come to the probe with his supporters who will clap if he sneezes and pass the blame on to some other official,look at anenih at the transport probe, some ppl even commended him later,its naija but we wont give up