Sufuyan Ojeifo
15 July 2008
Abuja — Senate Committee on Aviation probing the disbursement and application of the N19.5 billion Aviation Intervention Fund has said it had uncovered a plot to discredit its members and the report it plans to submit to the Senate.
The report would have been submitted today to the Senate were it not for the sudden recess it proceeded on last Thursday ahead of today's Court of Appeal verdict in the election appeal case of the Senate President, Senator David Mark.
The Committee, THISDAY learnt yesterday, is worried that the Head of AVSATEL Nigeria Limited, Mr. George Eider, whose company got the N6.5 billion Safe Tower project, is being pressurised to claim it (Committee) demanded $1 million from him.
Eider, two former Ministers of Aviation, Professor Babalola Borishade and Chief Femi Fani-Kayode as well as former Managing Director of Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Mr. Rowland Iyayi have been charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for criminal conspiracy to defraud the nation of the intervention fund.
The N6.5 billion Safe Tower project was discovered to have been grossly inflated by N4.5 billion. The project should have cost N2 billion at a 100 per cent marked up profit going by the global best estimate.
Sources from the Senate Committee yesterday said that that some principal actors in the Aviation Intervention Fund saga have been piling pressure on Eider, an Austrian, to raise allegation of bribery against members.
The plot was said to have been hatched while Eider was in the EFCC detention.
But the Senate leadership, under Senator Mark, as gathered yesterday, had sympathised with the Committee on the plan to raise the allegation of demand for $1 million bribe.
Mark was said to have advised the Committee last week to quickly submit its report before falling victim to "innuendos and allegations of demand for bribe" but the recess has stalled the planned submission of the Committee report.
THISDAY gathered that the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Anyim Ude had run a check of all eleven members of the Committee to establish a possible relationship between them and Eider.
A source close to the Committee hinted yesterday that the Committee Chairman could not establish any connection between any member of the Committee and Eider prior to the time he (Eider) appeared before the Committee on June 25, 2008 during the just-concluded public hearing.
EFCC operatives had arrested him shortly after he gave his testimony before the Committee.
The Committee is saddled with the responsibility of unraveling the circumstances surrounding the expenditure of the N19.5 billion fund through award of inflated contracts.
The Senate President had warned while declaring the public hearing open on June 24, this year, that members of the Committee should not be bribed.
According to him, "Please, there is no point coming and attempting to bribe them (members of the Committee) because they will call a spade a spade.
"The distinguished Senators will rather lose their lives than take bribes and write a wrong report. Nobody should try it because efforts are already being made to bribe members of the Committee and I think that it is unnecessary."
Mark's declaration followed the disclosures by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ude that some outside forces had been making efforts to threaten, intimidate and blackmail the Committee in order to frustrate its investigation.
"Some forces outside the hallowed chambers have been making efforts to introduce some elements of threat, intimidation and blackmail designed to frustrate the investigation," he had declared.
Another source close to the Committee said: "There is no amount of blackmail, intimidation and threat that will deter it from creditably and courageously carrying out the Senate's mandate for the sake of Nigeria."
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