Ex-gov faults diversion claim
By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
Senators belonging to the All Progressive Congress and their colleagues in the Peoples Democratic Party yesterday engaged in a shouting match over one of the ministerial nominees, Rotimi Amaechi, following a petition against him which surfaced on the floor during plenary.
Amaechi, the immediate past governor of Rivers State, in a petition submitted to the upper chamber, and read by Senator George Thompson Sekibo (PDP Rivers East) on behalf of the group, was accused of corrupt practices involving the diversion of over N70 billion state funds.
But the ministerial nominee , in a statement from his media office countered that he was not involved in any shady deal as governor of the state.
Describing the panel of inquiry as invidious, Amaechi said “the statement credited to the panel’s chairman Justice Omeriji of a “missing” N53 billion is unfortunate and leaves much to be desired. The mischief is all the more evident as the funds referred to are funds from the Rivers State reserve fund which was duly approved by the a Rivers State House of Assembly and whose expenditure were duly captured and accounted for.”
In a move to present the petition on behalf of the Integrity Group, Senator Sekibo who came under order 41 of the Senate standing rule, was shouted down by APC Senators.
But determined to ensure the petition was heard, the PDP senators fired back in retaliation and demanded that the petition be read by Sekibo.
And in his intervention, Senate President Bukola Saraki, sought to know whether the issues raised were being litigated on or not, and to which he got contradictory responses from APC and PDP Senators who separately yelled ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, simultaneously.
Saraki, who then asked Sekibo to lay the petition before the Senate, had same forwarded to the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition to look into it very critically and report back to the Senate.
The Integrity Group in the voluminous petition signed by one Livingstone Wechie, requested the Senate to reject Amaechi’s nomination as a minister on grounds of alleged corruption, criminal breach of trust, unlawful enrichment and conversion of over N70 billion of state funds when he served as governor between 2007 and 2015.
The group claimed to have forwarded same to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and other related offences Commission (ICPC) for investigation and subsequent prosecution.
The division among senators across party divides over the petition even continued after plenary session as many of the APC senators, dismissed it with a wave of the hand, assuring that Amaechi would scale through while their PDP counterparts vowed to stop him.
Speaking to newsmen after plenary yesterday, Sekibo said the petition did not originate from the senators from Rivers, but from a non-governmental organisation, which he said, was in full support of President Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade.
He further said that the group was concerned about the nomination of Amaechi, who he pointed out, has some corruption charges pending with some anti-corruption agencies.
The politician argued that, since the Integrity Group had sent their petition against Amaechi to Buhari, the president ought to have waited for the outcome of the case before appointing him to any public office, stating that if confirmed as minister, his position would frustrate the pending investigation against him.
He said: “There is the group that is called the Integrity Group and they believe in transparency, fight against corruption; they believe in good governance and effective utilisation of every fund that is allocated to any state government.They are based in Port Harcourt.
“They went into a research and discovered that over N70 billion were transferred from hard currency account to places outside the country. And a petition on this note was written to Mr President. I believe the President has not read it. If he has read it, he may not hurriedly nominate Rotimi Amaechi to be a minister.
“Amaechi is qualified to be a minister but when issues of corruption and fraud are openly x-rayed by people, it is necessary for Mr. President to take a critical look and examine the allegations from these people whether they are true or not.
“Mr President is preaching about corruption; we applaud him for the corruption fight he is waging against whoever. So, if you are fighting against corruption, then there must not be any sacred cow. No matter how close a person is to you, if there are allegations about him, you must spend time to critically look at them whether there are truth about the allegations that have been so submitted.
The legislator said that there were many Rivers people without any indictment from anybody, who were not facing allegations of corruption, who were qualified to be appointed as minister, wondering why the President appeared to be in haste to nominate Amaechi.
“We are not stopping Mr President from appointing a Rivers man to be a minister; we will welcome it.
There are many APC members who were not indicted or accused of such similar issues. So, we have not seen the haste in pushing Amaechi to be a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Sekibo observed with dismay that the Rivers state government had set up a Panel of inquiry to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the sales of government property but Amaechi refused to honour the invitation of the Panel, saying that such refusal was an indication that the accused was culpable.
He said that, since President Buhari did not give attention to the petition sent to him on Amaechi by the Integrity Group, the Senators, representing the state were optimistic that the petition brought to the Senate would draw the attention of the President to the matter.
But in a counter position , the former governor said, “Odrdinarily we might not have responded to the mischief of Mr. Wike knowing that having failed with his various desperate tactics to stop the nomination of the Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi as a minister, he has embarked on this last ditch effort which is his trump card in the hope that it will diminish the former governors towering stature as a statesman and honest Nigerian.
“However in keeping with Governor Amaechi’s ethos of transparent and accountable leadership, we will again repeat the facts of the matter .
“Between 2013 and early 2015 revenue accruing to the government of Rivers state was cut in half due to swindling federal allocation to states. From about an average of N 20 billion, the state began receiving between N 9 and N10 billion. By the middle of The first quarter of 2015 the state revenue dipped to as low as N6 billion. Salaries alone stood at over N9 billion besides other expenses. Government has set aside a the reserve funds as a rainy day fund and had need to fall back to it to find salaries and projects.
The details of the expenditure were very clearly captured and this information which was already In the public domain was shared with the incoming and the Omeriji panel.
“Government business should be transparent and honest and if indeed Mr. Nyesom Wike understands that basics of governance, then he should know that rather than playing to the gallery with his red herring of a panel, he should simply go to court and prove his spurious allegations of corruption to court if he is sure there is corruption.
“Spending resources left behind for the betterment of Rivers people by a prudent and thrifty government on frivolities is indeed irresponsible and unbecoming for a person who aspires to public office especially that of the exalted office of governor.
“We would counsel Mr. Wike to focus on the job at hand and try to make something of the few days he has before he leaves brick house, per adventure he might yet make some positive impact on the minds of Rivers people.”
