₦airaland Forum

THE Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, is in trouble with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The commission said last night it had discovered that Umahi collected the sum of N400 million allocated to the PDP in the state to compromise last year’s Presidential poll but he diverted the cash to two of his companies and used it to build two hotels in Port Harcourt and Abakiiki.

The commission has already arrested and questioned many suspects, including bank officials, who have made statements linking the governor and his companies.

EFCC sources said, “This case involving some chieftains of the PDP in Ebonyi State and some companies emanated from the alleged N23,2999,705,000, disbursed by the erstwhile Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs Diezani Alison Madueke during the 2015 Presidential election out of which N400million was traced to Ebonyi State.

“In the State, Kelechi Igwe (incumbent Deputy Governor ), Fidelis Nwanwko and Ambassador Frank N. Ogbuewu collected the money to prosecute the 2015 general election.

“The duo of Fidelis Nwankwo and Ambassador Frank N. Ogbuewu were invited and they disclosed that they collected the N400million from Fidelity Bank and handed it over to Access Bank on the directive of the then Deputy Governor who is now the incumbent Governor, Engr. David Umahi. “The Operations Manager of Access Bank Abakaliki was invited and he revealed that the money was paid into the accounts of Osborn La-Palm Royal Resort Ltd and Brass Engineering & Construction Nig. Ltd. domiciled in Abakaliki.

“The statement of the accounts of the companies that were analysed disclosed that the sum of three N300million was paid into the account of Osborn La-Palm Royal Resort Ltd and N100 million into the account of Brass Engineering & Construction Nig. Ltd and subsequently withdrawn by Chinyere Egwuche.

“The movement of the fund from one account to another and the subsequent cash withdrawal of N300million in tranches of N50million are clear features of money laundering.

“The above companies were discovered to have been incorporated by the incumbent Governor of Eonyi State in 1993 and 2011 respectively.
“Consequently, letters of invitation were written to the Managing Directors of the companies where the money was paid but the letters were returned undelivered as the addressees refused to collect them.

“Thereafter, Austin Umahi, Maxwell Umahi, Chinyere Egwuche and Mabel Dikibo were arrested. Investigation revealed that Chinyere Egwuchu and Mabel Dikibo were the signatories to the account of the companies.

“It was also discovered that one of the suspects, Chinyere withdrew the N300million paid into the account of Osborn La-Palm which, according to her was used to further construction of Osborn La-Palm hotels in Abakaliki, Uburu and Port Harcourt, while the N100million paid into the account of Brass Engineering and Construction Nigeria Limited was transferred to a certain David Umahi Faith Foundation. They volunteered statement and were released on bail to reliable sureties.

“In furtherance of this investigation, the property belonging to the companies were identified and the Commission’s stickers “Under Investigation” were placed on them. However, legal machineries are being set in motion to seal the companies in case the suspects refused to wholly refund the monies that were fraudulently collected by them.”

In the meantime, the sum of N90million has been refunded. Investigation is still in progress,” a top EFCC official confirmed.

waley007:
thanks ,I don't want to go dere for just studies,I wanna make money too

A former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, has been fingered in a new N400m scam, The PUNCH has learnt.

Impeccable sources in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission told our correspondent on Sunday that Obanikoro, who was released last Friday, might be invited again soon to explain his alleged role in the scam.

The ex-minister, who returned from the United States on October 17, spent three weeks at the Abuja office of the EFCC for allegedly receiving N4.7bn from the Office of the National Security Adviser and distributing over N3bn to Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and Senator Iyiola Omisore, who were the governorship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti and Osun states respectively in 2014.



Obanikoro subsequently returned N100m to the EFCC with a promise to return another N480m.

His American and Nigerian passports were subsequently seized before his release last Friday.

An EFCC detective on Sunday told our correspondent that recent investigations showed that Obanikoro allegedly received N400m from a former Minister of Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, who was the Director of Finance of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation during the build-up to the 2015 elections.

The source said sometime in 2015, Usman sent the money to Obanikoro through a proxy.

The detective said, “As part of investigations into the billions disbursed by Nenadi Usman during the build-up to the 2015 elections, we interrogated a suspect at our office. The suspect told us that he handed over N400m to Obanikoro in the presence of some PDP members.

“So, Obanikoro will be invited to the Lagos office of the EFCC to tell his own side of the story.”

The EFCC had alleged in March that about N3.145bn was mysteriously transferred from the account of the ONSA, domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria, to the account of Joint Trust Dimensions Limited, a company allegedly owned by Usman.

Usman was said to have transferred N840m to the account of the Director of Publicity of the organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, in Zenith Bank on February 19, 2015, while she allegedly gave a former finance minister, Chief Olu Falae, N100m on the instruction of a PDP stalwart, Chief Anthony Anenih.

A former Governor of Imo State, Achike Udenwa, and a former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Viola Onwuliri, according to the documents, got N350m in two tranches.

The first tranche of N150m was allegedly paid into their joint account with Zenith Bank on January 13, 2015. The second tranche of N200m was credited into their account with Diamond bank.

Usman and Fani-Kayode have since been arraigned before the Federal High Court in Lagos and their accounts frozen while Udenwa and Falae may be arraigned soon.

Apart from the ONSA fund, Usman allegedly disbursed a separate N23bn to various states during the build-up to the elections.

The money Usman disbursed allegedly emanated from a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.

The money, which was $115m but converted to N23bn, was alleged to have been kickbacks from some dubious oil contractors involved in oil theft.

The EFCC has, so far, grilled about 16 former governors and ministers over the alleged N23bn Diezani sleaze.

Some of them include the immediate past Governor of Kebbi State, Saidu Dakin Garin; former Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State; former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State; former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State; former Governor James Ngilari of Adamawa State; and a former Governor of Zamfara State, Mamuda Shinkafi.

Among the others are a former Governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke; a former Minister of State for FCT, Jumoke Akinjide; and a former Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda.

During the elections, each state was said to have received at least N450m from the fund, which was handled by ministers or governors, who were members of the PDP.

All attempts to speak with Obanikoro’s media aide, Jonathan Eze, proved abortive on Sunday

as his phone indicated that it was switched off.

A source close to Obanikoro, however, told our correspondent that the ex-minister was not in charge of former President’s Goodluck Jonathan’s Lagos campaign and therefore could not have received such money.

He said, “I am aware that the EFCC has interrogated the person who collected money for the Jonathan campaign organisation. However, Senator Obanikoro never collected N400m from him.

“Those who collected money at Federal Palace Hotel know themselves and they should please leave Senator Obanikoro out of it.”

The Federal Government on Thursday ruled out the need for the poorest and vulnerable Nigerians to apply online before they can benefit from the monthly N5,000 Conditional Cash Transfer.

This was contained in a statement issued by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s media office.
The statement was responding to some misleading reports in the media regarding the implementation of the N500 billion Social Investment Programmes of the Buhari administration.

It reads: “While we understand the need for an ongoing public discussion of this unprecedented budgetary allocation in favor of the Nigerian people especially the poorest and the most vulnerable, it is not correct to claim any form of mismanagement or marginalization whatsoever.”
“There has not been any disbursement from the allocated fund not to talk of any kind of mismanagement at all. While it is true that funds are being released for the social investment programmes, it is rather preposterous for now to say there is no evidence where the funds have gone to.

“As an administration noted for its transparency, we intend to fully keep Nigerians posted on all financial expenditure in line with extant laws of the country.

“Of the series of social investment programmes we have outlined, only the job creation scheme-N-Power requires an online registration from unemployed graduates and non-graduate youths.”

But the statement justified the requirement for online registration for the hiring of 500,000 unemployed graduates.

“It is important to explain, again, for the benefit of clarity, that the requirement for online application for the N-Power job scheme makes absolute sense considering that all together the Federal Government is planning to hire half a million unemployed Nigerian graduates.”

“We are all witnesses to the calamity that occurred in the past when a manual effort was made to hire large number of Nigerian youths. It led to needless deaths and outright chaos.” It added.

On the allegation that Borno State is not online and the people of the state will be discriminated against in the N-Power process, the statement, said such a claim simply flies in the face of the fact.

It added: “Almost 15,000 Nigerians from Borno State applied in the first application series of N-Power schemes online.

“It is also not tenable to argue that people in Maiduguri for instance which today plays hosts to tonnes of international NGOs cannot apply online or are denied internet access.”

The statement disclosed that the selection process for the first batch of 200,000 Nigerians to be engaged in the N-Power process has now been completed, and that their official engagement is now awaiting the completion of BVN verification so that they would be paid directly.

On how the selection was done, the statement said “Presidency officials collaborated actively with the Ministries of Agriculture & Natural Resources, Health and other government agencies all through the process. There were no foreign consultants involved, nor is one needed.”
It added that selection of the first 200,000, were based on three criteria including 40% selected based on the number of applications per state, a special mark-up for the 6 states of the Northeast and a discretionary addition for states with low numbers of applicants.

ASABA—DELTA State House of Assembly has told the people of the state to stop blaming Governor Ifeanyi Okowa for the terrible conditions of virtually all the federal roads in the state, saying the Federal Government should be held responsible.

Speaking through the Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Environment, Oil and Gas, Mr Daniel Yingi, the Assembly, said it was sad to hear people blame Governor Okowa for the disrepair of federal roads in the state instead of the Federal Government, describing it as a sad commentary.

According to Yingi who represents Burutu Constituency 1, “I want to use this opportunity to let Deltans know that most of these roads, including Sapele-Abraka-Agbor Road, Benin-Sapele-Warri Road, Asaba-Illah-Uromi Road and many others that are in very bad shape, are federal roads not state roads. So, all the blame should be heaped at the door steps of the Federal Government and not the state. The people should not judge our performance by the failure of the federal government. I feel very bad when I hear people ask Okowa what is doing on these roads.”

Omoakinsuyi:
Stale photoshop that was used to blackmail the man in 2012 election. The OP must be mentally unstable