THE office of the Auditor General of the Federation has dissociated itself from a report by an online newspaper, Premium Times, alleging that former Head of Service, Mr. Steve Oronsaye, was indicted in a N123billion fraud.

Reacting to the story of the audit report alleged to have emanated from his office, the Auditor General, Mr. Samuel Ukura, at the weekend, described it as malicious and character assassinating.

In a statement, Ukura said: “With rude shock and disbelief, our attention was drawn to an online publication by Premium Times of September 15, 2014, with the misleading caption: “Investigation: Auditor General’s Report indicts Ex-Head of Service, Oronsaye, for N123 Billion Fraud.

“Paragraph 5 of the said publication alleged that the auditor-general submitted an audit report, which indicted an ex-Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye, for N123 billion fraud, to the government in 2012, without corresponding action from the government.”

According to him, “A similar story was also published on page 12 of ThisDay of Tuesday, September 16, 2014 and on Page 5 of Daily Trust of Wednesday, September 17, 2014.


“These publications, in all ramifications, are an embodiment of mischief and misrepresentation of facts of the matter. In the light of this ugly development, the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation totally and vehemently dissociates itself from the malicious and character assassinating publications and also condemns its intention.” Efforts to reach Oronsaye for comments failed.

Sources close to the former Head of Service however revealed that he may be considering dragging the affected newspapers to court.

Further investigations revealed that the publication may have been sponsored by those opposed to the Bill for the establishment of the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Center being supported by Oronsaye, in his capacity as the chairman, Presidential Committee on the Financial Action Task Force. It was gathered that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is the only agency opposed to the Bill, out of over 20 stakeholders.

EFCC is said to be seeing the NFIC Bill as offensive, as its success amounts to her losing control of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, which is its highest source of foreign donor support. All other stakeholders are said to be in total support of an independent Financial Intelligence Center for Nigeria.

Guardian