[size=15pt]EFCC report on corrupt govs missing [/size]
Written by Emmanuel Aziken & Bukola Ojeme
Sunday, 24 August 2008

* Controversy in Senate

Controversy is deepening over the whereabouts of the latest annual report of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which details, among others, the extent of investigations of allegations of corruption against some serving and former governors in the country.
The report could not be traced in the upper legislative chamber just as the EFCC began investigations into the allegation of fraud levelled against Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State and some of his top aides.

The last publicly acknowledged EFCC report submitted to the Senate was that of 2005 and was read in the Senate chamber by the erstwhile chairman of the commission Mallam Nuhu Ribadu on September 27, 2006.

Ribadu, before he left office, was believed to have submitted the 2006 report of the commission’s activities to the Senate last year, a fact corroborated by Senator Sola Akinyede, chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes. The committee oversights the affairs of the EFCC.

It could, however, not be established at the weekend when and to whom the report was submitted. Senator Ken Nnamani, the immediate past president of the Senate, doubted receiving the report when contacted but insisted that the report, if submitted,should be in the records of the office of the Senate President.

Nnamani left office in early June 2007 and was succeeded by Senator David Mark.

However, sources in the office of the Senate President denied the presence of the report as one senior aide to Mark told Sunday Vanguard that the report could not be found in the records even after an extensive search.

Section 37 of the EFCC Act requires the commission to submit a report of its activities in each year by or before September of the following year.

The section reads thus:

“The Commission shall, not later than 30th September in each year, submit to the National Assembly, a report of its activities during the immediately preceding year and shall include in such report the audited accounts of the Commission.’’

Akinyede, speaking in an interview, told Sunday Vanguard:

“The report was submitted because I spoke with Mallam Nuhu Ribadu on it. This year, the report will be submitted because it is one of the things I will be discussing with the chairman. It is in the law regulating the EFCC, there is supposed to be an annual report submitted to the National Assembly on the 30th of September each year,’’ the senator said. Nnamani, speaking in a telephone interview from Washington D.C. USA where he is attending this week’s Democratic Party’s convention, said:

“I don’t remember receiving the report. I am in Washington now. I have put all those things behind me and I have moved on to other things. I am not sure but call those people that are there, they have a way of checking it, it is an institution.’’

However, checks in the office of the Senate President could not confirm the whereabouts of the report.

“We have checked and the thing is not here and if it had come it would have been recorded and passed on to Senator Akinyede,” one official in the Senate President’s office said on the basis of anonymity.

Akinyede, on his part, claimed not to have received the report which ordinarily should come through the office of the president of the Senate.

Ribadu, in an appearance before the Senate on September 27, 2006, formally presented the commission’s report for 2005.

Following his presentation of an overview of the commission’s affairs, the then Senator Mark had challenged him to be specific on the cases against the governors on the basis that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and some senators were publicly accused of corruption.

“The name of the vice-president was mentioned. If our own colleagues can be called, then we urge you to name the governors and all those who have been involved including the biggest thief in the world who is a Nigerian.’’

Following the prompting, the former EFCC boss moved on to assert that the commission was as at then either investigating or had established cases of corruption against thirty of the sitting governors. Among the exceptions were the then Governors Umaru Yar‘Adua and Donald Duke of Katsina and Cross River States respectively.

Not less than six of those former governors alleged as having criminal cases against them are now in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the EFCC has begun investigations into allegation of fraud against Ohakim and some of his top aides.

The investigations came on the heels of a petition against the Imo governor to the anti-graft agency by a cartel of commodity traders which alleged that some of his aides, claiming to be acting on his instruction, fraudulently collected N28 million for the state allocation of grains from the strategic food reserve.

However, the state commissioner for justice and attorney general, Mr. Ken Njemanze, dismissed the allegation as unfounded and an attempt to disparage the reputation of the governor.

Sunday Vanguard had on July 20, blew the lid off the activities of some state governments allegedly involved in the sale of their grains allocation to commodity cartels instead of releasing the allocation to the local market to boost food supply and consequently bring down the soaring cost of food stuff.

Ohakim and some of his aides, as alleged by the petitioners, through their lawyer, Mr. Kayode Ajulo, in a petition dated July 24, 2008, “ collected the sum of N28, 300,000 from your petitioners under the guise of selling the Imo State allocation of grains from Federal Grains Reserve to your petitioners based in Ibadan, Oyo State, South West Zone of Nigeria.”

Besides the governor, those mentioned in the petition include the chief of staff in the Government House, the state commissioner for agriculture, Chief Longers Anyanwu, personal assistant to the governor, Mr. Thadeaus Ochoma, one Mr. Izuchukwu Ochioma and one Mr. Obinna. The petition to the EFCC alleged further:

“It is pertinent to inform you that this most unfortunate, callous and degrading role of the above mentioned personalities have led to food crisis and its attendant effects.

“ Against the above background, we urge you to use your good offices to request for a comprehensive investigation and ensure that those found culpable are brought to justice”.

An affidavit sworn to by one Mr. Abiodun Awobiyi, a member of the cartel, and attached to the petition, among others, alleged paying out money running into several millions of Naira at different times and locations, including the governor’s private quarters in the Government House to Ohakim’s personal assistant inorder to secure the state allocation of Federal Government grains. The petition alleged that, in one of such instances, the governor’s PA, “drove me and others straight through two security posts to the Governor’s Lodge where we were directed to sit in the governor’s sitting room.

“That Mr. Thedeaus Ochoma (Teddy) at the Governor’s lodge later told me and I verily believe him that the governor and the chief of staff are busy and therefore had directed him to continue the transaction in the governor’s sitting room”, it added.

Awobiyi further averred, “I paid the sum of N10, 000,000 for the grains to Mr. Thedeaus Ochoma (Teddy) who gave me a receipt for the payment.”

But the state commissioner for justice, in a letter obtained by Sunday Vanguard, dated August 4, 2008, dismissed the allegation, insisting that “ the governor of Imo State does not know and has no dealings with the aforementioned individuals in any capacity whatsoever, be it official or private, neither has he authorized anybody to deal with them.

“ The honourable commissioner for agriculture, Chief Longers Anyanwu, does not know and has had no dealings with the aforementioned individuals in any capacity whatsoever, be it official or private.

“Neither the governor of Imo State, the Imo State Government nor any of her lawful functionaries has any legal or moral obligation to the said persons in the sum of N28, 300,000 being the alleged amount given for the alleged procurement of fertilizers, or at all.”

The state government also disowned the governor’s alleged PA, insisting, “There is no personal assistant to the governor of Imo State known and described as Mr. Thedeaus Ochoma and the said Mr. Thadeaus Ochoma did not collect any sums of money on behalf of His Excellency, the governor of Imo State, the hon. commissioner for agriculture, the chief of staff, or any of the lawful representatives of the Imo State government.

His Excellency, the governor of Imo State views this as an unwarranted and intolerable acts of callous and cheap blackmail. This campaign of calumny so viciously orchestrated by unscrupulous authors is an unmistakable gold digging attempt and will undoubtedly be stifled and effectively resisted”.


source:http://www.vanguardngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15141&Itemid=42

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