Paul Ohia
5 November 2009
Lagos — Association of Anti-graft Activists (AAA) has called for the withdrawal of a national honour given the former chairman of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Chief Olabode George, by the Federal Government and his removal from Kirikiri prisons to Maiduguri.
In a letter to President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua yesterday, the Association said the embattled former deputy chairman, South-West of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should be banned from politics for the next ten years and also for security operatives to take note of those visiting him at present in the prison.
The group through its spokesman, Alhaji Sola Oshodi, alleged that such visitors have been threatened of not getting government appointment if they failed to make a stopover at the prisons.
The group said the incarceration of the former PDP chieftain would give a new lease of life to the PDP in Lagos state but warned that charlatans must not be allowed to take over the party.
"The South West zone must play a strong role and look for neutral people to appoint, not the same old recycled faction members who claim falsely to have followership, " AAA said.
In addition, the group wants George to be forced to return the money which earned him a prison sentence.
"If he is not made to return the loot and also serve the jail term, there will be no moral lesson to the effort of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The anti-graft war is to serve as a deterrent and reduce corruptio"the group said..
If people return the money and go free, then there is no reason why more people will not steal" AAA stated.
The group applauded the President for his efforts in the direction of anti-graft war adding that the international community is watching George's saga as a determining factor to the seriousness of the anti-graft campaign waged by the EFCC.
George, and others were handed two-years jail term by a Lagos High Court last week for inflating contracts at the NPA.
The others were, NPA Managing Director, Aminu Dabo, Olusegun Abidoye, Abdullahi Aminu Tafida, Zanna Maideribe and Sale Aliyu.
The convicts were tried for, among others, criminal conspiracy, disobedience of lawful orders, contract inflation and contract splitting. They were each given 28 years but are expected to spend only two years in prison, depending on the outcome of the appeal the defence said it would initiate.
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