Daily Independent (Lagos)
Maxwell Oditta
11 July 2009
Lagos — Once again, he has come out unscathed. Even the allegedly hostile Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-controlled Anambra State House of Assembly has cleared him of complicity in suspected laundering of N250 million state funds intercepted by the Police in Lagos, recently. Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State must have been taken aback with media reports of the N250 million found in possession of one of his aides, which immediately threw up a controversy, especially given his avowed position on transparency and abhorrence of graft.
For Obi, the anxiety generated by the scam is gone too soon, however. The soft-spoken governor has members of the Anayo Nnebe-led State House of Assembly to thank for upholding his own pleadings on the scam. In adopting the report of the three-man committee set up by the Assembly on June 2 to look into the matter and find out what actually transpired, the Anambra State legislature noted that the adoption was to enable the recommendation be accepted by the legislature as a working document, pending the time other reports by other relevant government agencies would be out.
Although the adoption of the committee's report was successful, the adoption created a divided House as some members opposed the adoption, while others abstained from the voting exercise. According to the report, "the committee found out from the office of the Secretary to the State Government that Ejike Onwusogbulu is the owner of Glitz Introserve Ltd, which is a registered company with the state government."
An excerpt from the report submitted to the House read: "Mr. Speaker, the committee found out from the office of the Accountant General of the State that the state government has not paid any amount of money whatsoever to either Ejike Onwusogbulu personally or to Glitz Introserve Ltd or Autozone Motors Global Ltd. It was also discovered by the committee from Ejike Onwusogbulu that the amount that was intercepted by the Police in Lagos was N255 million and not N250 million. The money, from investigation, was an overdraft facility withdrawn by Ejike Onwusogbulu from Fidelity Bank Plc, No.7 Ziks Avenue, Awka on Thursday May 28, 2009.
"The committee found out from Ejike Onwusogbulu that he withdrew the money for the purposes of direct purchase of the contracted vehicles from dealers in Lagos, who are more inclined to cash-and-carry transaction. The committee discovered that the said money withdrawn by Ejike Onwusogbulu is N255 million was the money intercepted by the Police in Lagos. The governor corroborated the fact that Ejike Onwusogbulu was the owner of the money and that the said vehicles intercepted with the money were for routine service in Lagos and that he was aware that the contractor gave the money to his driver."
Incidentally, the Lagos State Police Command, which the various persons who appeared before the House committee testified actually intercepted the N255 million had earlier denied such occurrence. Also, the committee's report
refuted the remark by the Special Assistant on Media to Governor Obi, Valentine Obienyem, that the amount intercepted by the Police was nowhere around the figure being bandied about by the government's critics.
"We did not intercept any money. We don't give a damn what anybody has to say. People can go on to concoct their stories. I have been briefed. We have been told to say this. We have no such case in Police. We are not investigating any case," Police Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Command, Frank Mba said.
Obienyem had affirmed that Onwusogbulu is a contractor to the state government, who has been doing business with the state since 2007. He did not respond, however, to claims in some circles that Onwusogbulu is brother to the wife of Ndibe Obi (the governor's brother), who is the supplier (or has assumed the posture of supplier) of vehicles to the Anambra State Integrated Development Strategy. The truth, according to Obienyem, is that the contractor was seen with some wads of cash, being the proceeds from his services legitimately rendered and paid for. He said the amount was nowhere around the figure being bandied about by the critics.
An Internet-based news media reported at the time of the incident that the movement of the money from the Awka Branch of Fidelity to Lagos was sabotaged or given away by some of Obi's security details. There was a leak to the police in Lagos about the unorthodox conveyance of public funds over a distance of more than 400 kilometres, a leak, which now appears ill motivated, as it seems sponsored. Ukpakareports.com quoted one of the security details, who allegedly confirmed that it was one of the mobile police officers who threw open the lead on the scam:
"Mr. Ndibe Obi who usually escorts the money was indisposed. Peter was therefore forced to use Mr. Val Obienyem, who was unfortunate to run the errand when the hungry and deprived security escorts - whom Peter overworks and is too mean to give enough to shut up - have had enough and decided to sing."
The veracity of the above lines may be in doubt, especially as the Anambra State Government has labelled the news web site as jaundiced against Obi. When the scam first came to light, the government distanced itself from it, while Obi demanded investigation by the police authorities. The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Maja Umeh, said that contrary to some erroneous reports, Obi was attending to official businesses in Abuja when the news broke.
"The purpose of the allegation should be seen as a diversion to the real issues in the Anambra election and Obi's quest for re-election. Anybody who knows Peter Obi knows him to be a template, an advocate of probity and transparency in governance, a man not given to cheap lies, an open-minded man who is in politics but not given to the corrupt practices of politicians," Obienyem said.
Such epithets emanating from officially mediated profiling by Obienyem meant nothing to Obi's opponents. To them, the matter presented an opportunity to attempt to nail Obi finally so that he will not be in a good position to vie for next year's governorship election. The scam was particularly celebrated in the camp of the 14-day governor of Anambra State, Andy Uba and among hordes of supporters of the main opposition parties like the PDP and the Action Congress (AC).
Not even the news that the Lagos State Police Command has released the seized N255 million to the Anambra State Government could deter Obi's detractors and critics from adjudging him as hiding under the veil of probity to practise corruption. Many organisations began to call for full-scale investigation into the scam and even the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said they were all out to investigate the matter.
The EFCC and ICPC may wish to follow the cues supplied by the House committee or else dissent. In which case, the funeral is now over for Anambra stakeholders on the scam. But the two commissions would have to consider the fact that the Anambra Assembly is an all PDP outfit.
There were also reports of instigation of members of the State Assembly to impeach Obi, even though Government House in Awka may have made the best of the impeachment scare, blowing it out of proportion, to sway public sympathy in Obi's favour.
The visit of the PDP National Vice Chairman (South East), Olisa Metu to the State Assembly, was interpreted by Obi's All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as an attempt to incite the House to impeach the governor. That Metu was quoted as saying "we want it (the scam) investigated, especially as the governor claims to be a good person," was enough to throw government functionaries in Awka into a screaming pandemonium.
Even a meeting with the state lawmakers with the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) convened by the party's National Secretary, Abubakar Kawa Buraje at the Wadata Plaza in Abuja on June 25, was also interpreted by Obi's supporters as a retreat to commence the impeachment of Obi. But Nnebe assured Saturday Independent a day to Obi's clearance that there was no such move to impeach Obi. He added that the alleged impeachment plot was a mere fabrication and that even if there was the need to impeach him, the ballyhoo from the government media team would not deter the lawmakers.
Obi had once been impeached by a clique of lawmakers led by then Speaker, Mike Balonwu, despite the fervent objection of another group of lawmakers led by Ben Chuks-Nwosu, with Virgy Etiaba sworn-in as Nigeria's first-ever female governor. The former Chairman of Fidelity Bank and defunct Guardian Express Bank challenged his impeachment successfully at the courts. He was reinstated even before the defendants exhausted all avenues for appeal in the case, through the intervening efforts of old warhorse, Odumegwu Ojukwu, and with the cooperation of Etiaba.
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