Christopher Isiguzo in Enugu
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Mike Ozekhome, has asked the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, to take over the on-going investigation into the disbursement of N450 million, allegedly, sent to the Enugu State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party by the party’s national headquarters during the 2015 presidential election.
Ozekhome, who is counsel to the secretary of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Committee in Enugu State during the presidential election, Hon. Rita Mbah, expressed dismay at the handling of the matter by the Enugu Zonal office of the EFCC. There are insinuations that the fund may be part of the $2.1 billion arms procurement money that was diverted during the Jonathan administration.
In a nine-page letter to Magu titled, ‘A Clear Case of Victimisation, Perversion of Justice, illegal and unlawful detention, palpable bias, distorted and compromised investigation: Our Repressed Ms, Mbah’, Ozekhome said it had become necessary for the matter to be transferred from Enugu to Abuja in view of the compromised attitudes displayed by the officers in Enugu.
He asked Magu to immediately constitute an unbiased and uncompromised team to investigate the receipt and disbursement of the fund, with the intent to possibly prosecute former governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime, who allegedly disbursed the money, and all others involved.
According to him, “developments since the commencement of the investigation in Enugu had shown that justice will eventually not be served. Mbah had lost confidence in the neutrality and impartiality of the Zonal office, given their palpable compromise and bias as can be gleaned from the chronology of the ugly events detailed in the letter.”
The letter, which detailed how the money was, allegedly, disbursed, said former Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo; chairman of the campaign team, Charles Egungbe; and Prof. Osita Ogbu received N5 million each. It alleged that the then Commissioner of Police in the state, GOC 82 Division, and one DIG of police also got similar amounts.
The Department of State Services and other security agents got N30 million, while one Dr. Festus Uzor got N38.3 million for distribution to officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, the letter stated. It said other party leaders, including, Ikeje Asogwa, Eric Oluedo, Emeka Ujam and one Chime Oji, among others, equally received various sums of money from Chime.
Ozekhome alleged that rather than invite the affected persons, ‘The commission has continued to invite, arrest, detain, harass, intimidate, humiliate and victimise our client on the instructions of some influential persons in Enugu State whom Mbah alleges have heavily compromised the officers in the EFCC, Enugu zone, to look the other way and avert possible prosecution.
“Our client complains that in furtherance of this grand cover up, some of these influential persons in Enugu have recently decamped to APC to cover up their tracks. Our client, upon return to Nigeria and barely two weeks after her surgery, turned herself up to EFCC, Enugu Zonal office to honour the EFCC’s earlier invitation and to inquire as to why her family members were chased out of her personal house and same sealed up. She requested that her house be unsealed, given her critical medical condition as she was now residing in hotel.
“Our client has been arrested by EFCC in two occasions and detained once. She has been invited five times and she honoured all. Her house has been searched and some of her vital documents illegally carted away by the EFCC, Enugu Zonal office.
“She had clearly told EFCC that she did not benefit in any manner howsoever from the said fund, nor signed for it from the bank. She detailed how it was disbursed by Chime and the fact that the balance was still in his custody, yet your Enugu zone has not deemed it fit to invite or arrest or even conduct a search on the former governor or even the bigwigs mentioned in her earlier petition.
“Our client was shocked when her house was sealed only four days after EFCC Enugu received her letter detailing how the said fund was disbursed by Chime.”
Ozekhome told Magu in the letter, “Your Enugu office has been thoroughly compromised, otherwise, how can a mere messenger, an agent of a disclosed principal be made to suffer the iniquities of her disclosed principal. They just want to make her the scapegoat of a transaction she never directly participated in and never benefited from.”
The lawyer further averred that even when the governor admitted in a recent interview published in the Vanguard Newspapers of March 20, 2017 the personal receipt and disbursement of the said fund as well as in a stakeholders meeting held sometime in October last year, the commission in Enugu still turned blind eye.
He appealed to Magu to quickly investigate his staff in Enugu, as “it’s now common knowledge within the region that they have a proclivity towards compromising the high neutral standards set up by the commission by allowing monetary inducements and societal positions to determine the outcome of matters reported to them.”
