By Chizoba Ogbeche
Abuja
Operatives of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday quizzed a former governor of Cross River state, Senator Liyel Imoke, over his alleged involvement in the N500 million collected by the Cross Rivers state’s chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Ntufam John Okon.
The commission’s spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, in a press statement yesterday in Abuja, said the N500 million was part of the $115million allegedly lodged in Fidelity Bank Plc, in controversial circumstances, during the 2015 electioneering campaign period by the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison- Madueke.
He said a former Deputy Governor of Edo State, Chief Lucky Imasuen, and a former Secretary to the State Government, Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu, were also interrogated by operatives of the anti-graft body for reportedly collecting the sum of N700million from the $115million fraud.
The money, Uwujaren said, was reportedly collected from Fidelity Bank Plc, Mission Road, Benin City branch, in March, 2015, noting that Iyamu, a PDP presidential campaign coordinator in the 2015 presidential election, admitted to have collected the money from the bank.
The spokesperson said Iyamu told EFCC’s interrogators that he went to the bank on that fateful day with Imasuen and a former House of Representatives member representing Edo Central, Tony Azeigbemi (who is yet to be arrested by the EFCC) and the money was handed over to them by an official of the bank.
He said both Imasuen and Iyamu signed for the collection of the money, even as investigations by the commission showed that the two politicians conveyed the money from the bank in a bullion van to the residence of a top politician in Edo state.
Uwujaren said the Commission was on the trail of the politician for the recovery of the money, just as Imasuen and Iyamu are still in the EFCC custody and would be charged to court soon.
