Following his failure to honour the invitation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the anti-graft agency has disclosed that it will, any moment from now, declare former Borno State governor Ali Modu Sheriff wanted over alleged misappropriation, embezzlement of funds and abuse of office while he was governor of the state between 2003 and 2011.
The Commission’s spokesman, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, disclosed this yesterday during a press conference in Abuja.
According to the anti-graft agency, Modu Sheriff had been summoned to appear before the Commission on Thursday, April 23, at 10am for questioning but he was yet to honour the invitation, hence the Commission is set to exercise one of its options, which is declaring him wanted.
LEADERSHIP recalls that Sheriff was the governor of Borno State on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). It was alleged that part of the N300 billion his administration received from the Federation Account between during the period may not have been judiciously spent.
Uwujaren spoke while reacting to allegations made by one of its dismissed former officials, Juliet Ibekaku, that the Commission had not convicted any big name or ex-governor in the past eight years.
Pushes for conviction of Turaki, Nnamani, others
* Accuses former staff of campaign of calumny
The EFCC yesterday affirmed that the prosecution of Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, and eight former governors over their alleged looting of their states’ funds to the tune of billions of naira had been ongoing before various courts across the country.
The formers governors are Saminu Turaki (Jigawa), Joshua Dariye (Plateau), Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu), Abubakar Audu (Kogi), Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Akwe Doma (Nasarawa), and Rev. Jolly Nyame (Taraba).
According to the commission, the case against Ayodele Fayose has only been temporarily halted because of his re-election as Ekiti State governor.
This was contained in a statement issued yesterday by EFCC’s spokesman Mr Wilson Uwujaren, entitled ‘EFCC Warns Dismissed Staff Against Misinformation.’
The Commission was reacting to what it described as the campaign of calumny launched against it by two of its former employees, Ms Juliet Ibekaku and Mr Michael Nzekwe.
The anti-graft agency noted that “Ibekaku, a failed deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Enugu State, has been using her participation in APC policy events to fire broadsides at the EFCC.
According to the Commission, she had last week, at an APC Policy Dialogue in Lagos, accused the EFCC of neither convicting former governors being prosecuted in courts nor recovering the public’s assets in their possession .
“In the past seven or eight years since EFCC started, we’ve been hearing about governors who have been in the courts for the past eight years, no conviction, nothing! No assets recovered. And we are still (sic) back to square one. So, something has to change. And in my mind, what needs to change is the leadership. The second thing that needs to change is the staffing,” Ibekaku had stated.
But faulting her claims, the EFCC said she was rather “galvanized by a burning, selfish desire to run down the EFCC because she was dismissed from the Commission for gross indiscipline.”
The Commission also cited former state governors, DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa, Lucky Igbenedion of Edo and James Ibori of Delta, as examples of former governors who had been convicted and their assets confiscated by the courts.
It noted that the case involving former governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke Nnamani, alongside his then aide Sunday Anyaogu and six firms linked to them, which has been in court since he was first arraigned in 2007, was ongoing.
“EFCC in 2014 sought a separate trial of the companies and on May 19, 2015, the companies pleaded guilty to an amended 10-count charge. We await the court’s pronouncement on the fate of the assets,”Uwugaren noted.
The EFCC also explained that the case of the former Abia State Governor Orji Uzo Kalu was “currently at the Supreme Court where he is challenging the competence of the charge after the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling that he has a case to answer.”
It listed about 10 properties and 13 bank accounts belonging to the former Abia State governor it had seized and frozen.
As for Turaki, former governor of Jigawa State, EFCC said it also froze the accounts of companies linked to him.
For former Governor Dariye, he “was recently ordered to proceed to trial after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against the Appeal Court affirmation of the competence of the Commission’s charges against him.” He listed nine properties recovered from the former Plateau governor.
“The cases involving former Kogi State governor Abubakar Audu; former Gombe State governor Danjuma Goje; former Nasarawa State governor, Akwe Doma, former Taraba State governor, Rev. Jolly Nyame are progressing in courts; several witnesses have been called by the prosecution,” the commission stated.
The Commission observed that, while the records apply to cases involving ex-governors only, they do not tell the whole story regarding the prosecution and conviction record of the commission, adding that it had recovered several billions of naira.
“Between 2012 and 2014, the Commission recovered N65,320,669,350.35 (over N65.3bn). Also, the sum of $245, 952,030.13, and £693, 399 and 62,600 Euros were also recovered during the period,” it stated.
Uwujaren expressed regret that Ibekaku was applauded by her audience, who mistook her intervention for altruism without knowing that what drove her was neither party nor national interest.
He said, “Indeed, were her comments from someone who had no relationship with the Commission, one might have excused it for ignorance. But Ibekaku, who is also a lawyer, knows the achievements and efforts of the EFCC in the prosecution of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) and the quantum of assets that have been recovered by the EFCC but has chosen to play the ostrich.
“But, these facts mean nothing to Ibekaku who, in the pursuit of her latter-day ambition, is willing to publicly repudiate the achievements of an organization which she was a prominent part of, and one on whose pedestal she stood to attain all the “glowing” personal achievements she has been parading in the media.
“The obvious goal of Ibekaku is to hoodwink unsuspecting Nigerians by her posturing as an anti-corruption czar, what with her curriculum vitae that advertises her as a top official of the EFCC, where she spent about seven years of her recent adult working life.
“Ibekaku has declared a media misinformation war on the Commission for simply telling Nigerians she was no longer in the service of the Commission, contrary to her posturing.
“Let it be emphasized once again that in apportioning sanctions to Ms Ibekaku, along with her co-traveller, Michael Nzekwe, and nine others who were dismissed from the Commission, EFCC was guided by its Staff Regulations and extant Public Service Rules.
“Ms Ibekaku is challenging her dismissal at the National Industrial Court and we call on her to allow the court rule on her application and not to engage in acts tantamount to self-help, which only highlights, among others, acts unbecoming of a public officer, the reason she was dismissed from EFCC in the first place: gross indiscipline.”
Adamawa drags Fintiri to commission
Former acting governor of Adamawa State, Umaru Fintiri, may soon be facing charges over allegations that he looted the state’s treasury to the tune of billions of naira in the short time he acted as governor.
That follows a petition against the governor by the Adamawa State government which was lodged at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The state government is asking the anti-graft agency to assist it in recovering funds allegedly looted by the former acting governor of the state.
Fintiri, a former speaker of the state House of Assembly, who acted as the state governor between July and October, 2014, following the impeachment of the then governor, Alhaji Murtala Nyako, and his deputy, Barr. Bala James Nggilari, was said to have spearheaded their removal to pave the way for himself to emerge as governor.
According to the petition now before the EFCC, filed by the state government, Fintiri’s financial misdeeds and questionable expenditures are of monumental proportion.
The petition, dated May 11, 2015 and signed by the secretary to the state government (SSG), Mr Ibrahim A. Welye, is entitled, ‘Petition Against Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri , Erstwhile Acting Governor Adamawa State for Embezzlement, Misappropriation and Diversion of Public Funds.’
Specifically, the Adamawa State government has accused the former acting governor of purchasing a tea plantation in neighbouring Taraba State from the Bank of Agriculture at the whopping sum of N650 million.
Besides, it said it was in doubt as to how Fintiri could have spent over N20 billion within 86 days of his stint as the acting governor, as he had stated at a press conference.
The state government wrote, “On October 8, 2014, Barrister Bala James Nggilari assumed office as the governor of the state and has since discovered massive acts of embezzlement, diversion and misappropriation of state funds perpetrated by Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri.
“Faced with the fight against insurgency, the state government did not take action at that time. It is now expedient to do so.”
It also accused Fintiri of appropriating money for contracts not executed, including projects purportedly executed in areas of the state that were then under the control of Boko Haram.
“Fintiri, then acting governor of Adamawa State, claimed to have constructed bridges at Marraraba Garta and Kamale in Michika local government when the said local government was completely under the control of Boko Haram insurgents. He also claimed to have executed the Malamre-Yola road altogether valued at N2.8 billion.”
The North East state currently recovering from the devastating effect of the Boko Haram sect has also accused Fintiri of fraudulently approved N75 million for the electrification of Kirchinga in Madagali local government which was then also in the hands of the insurgents.
It further accused of the former acting governor of paying the sum of N257 million on September 26, 2014 purportedly for the renovation of the House of Assembly complex, an amount the state government said “was not only outrageous but phantom.”
The state government also requested the anti-corruption agency to investigate the Speaker’s purchase of the multimillion naira farm using his company, Mayim Construction and Property Ltd.
It further accused Fintiri of diverting the sum of N497 million earmarked for the construction of the Faculty of Law of the Adamawa State University (ADSU), after the foundation stone was laid.
