| EFCC probes Kalu over
scholarship fund
By Sun News
Friday July 30, 2004
The troubles of the Abia State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu,
with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) do
not seem to be over yet, as the Nuhu Ribadu-led commission
is said to have commenced a probe of the outspoken governor
over the alleged disappearance of about $400,000 meant for
scholarship award to Abia students abroad.
The EFCC is seeking to unearth how the money appropriated
for a scholarship fund was allegedly diverted to private use
by the governor.
Daily Sun gathered that the investigation is sequel to a petition
sent to Senate President Adolphus Wabara, by an Abia indigene,
who alleged that a relation of his (the petitioner) who was
supposed to benefit from the scholarship fund has since been
stranded overseas.
Wabara, on receipt of the petition, reportedly sent it to
President Olusegun Obasanjo who, in turn, forwarded it to
the EFCC for necessary action. Ribadu’s men were said
to have gone to work almost immediately to trace the movement
of the said funds allegedly routed to a private foreign account
of the governor.
Contacted on the alleged scam, however, Kalu dismissed the
allegations contained in the said petition as nonsense and
an insult to his person, saying that there was nothing he
could possibly do with the said $400,000 which comes to about
N56 million.
According to an aide of the governor who spoke to Daily Sun,
the petition, if it actually exists, is another manifestation
of the determination of political opponents of the governor
to pin something on him, no matter how ridiculous it may be.
The probe allegation comes on the heels of other allegations
by Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, her Minister
of State, Nenadi Usman and Ribadu that some state governors
were siphoning funds to private accounts abroad - an allegation
which, Daily Sun gathered, had necessitated the EFCC compiling
a dossier on eight governors accused of involvement in the
scam.
Among those allegedly on the list are Kalu, Alhaji Ahmed Sani
Yerima (Zamfara), Chief Dieprieye Alamieyeseigha (Bayelsa),
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (Lagos), Chief James Ibori (Delta),
Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua (Katsina) and suspended governor
of Plateau State, Chief Joshua Dariye.
Incidentally, Governor Ahmed Makarfi of Kaduna who, along
with Kalu, has been the most vociferous on the issue, is said
not to be on the list. Katsina’s Yar’ Adua is
a surprise addition to the list while many believe that the
inclusion of the Zamfara governor may be a direct onslaught
at the ANPP for which he has remained a rallying point. This
is in addition to the fact that he has stubbornly denied the
PDP a foothold in Zamfara with his running media campaign.
Like Tinubu, Ibori’s inclusion may not come as a surprise
to many who have followed the governor’s recent travails
both within and outside the law courts. On issues of principle,
the Delta governor had remained a stubborn opponent of the
central government and many of his supporters insist that
there is an unseen hand of the Federal Government in his ongoing
travails.
But, like Kalu, Makarfi had, when the ministers first made
the allegation, challenged the two ministers to make public
the names of the affected governors rather than give a blanket
condemnation of all the governors.
However, before the ministers could go public with the names,
Ribadu, whose job of tracking fraudsters at home and abroad
sometimes overlaps into issues of money laundering and related
crimes, soon confirmed the allegations, saying that the EFCC
had indeed traced some questionable fund transfers to some
governors.
The dossier project, therefore, seems to be a furtherance
of the EFCC’s determination to establish a water-tight
case against the identified governors. A source at the EFCC
told Daily Sun that Ribadu may have made his most recent confirmation
based on the strength of the dossier that his team compiled
on the governors. The source said that but for the immunity
clause in the Constitution, Ribadu and his men have enough
to put some of the governors behind bars if they are eventually
allowed to open the can of worms contained therein.
Reacting to the allegations by the ministers and the subsequent
report from EFCC, however, a senior aide of Governor Kalu
told Daily Sun that the governor remained undaunted by "all
these false allegations and spurious reports." He further
added that "Kalu remains an epitome of probity"
and that "this campaign of calumny" would come to
naught.
According to him, Kalu has not, for once, ceased in his call
that the ministers, EFCC and even the ICPC should be specific
and make the names of the guilty governors public. "It
is not just enough to make a sweeping accusation. It is cheap
blackmail," he said, pointing out that it was rather
curious that it is the same set of governors whose names are
being bandied about all the time.
He said that the Abia State government under Kalu had set
a national precedent by annually publishing the audited accounts
of the state in national dailies. "If they have a provable
case, let them prove it," he challenged his governor’s
accusers, adding: "we are ready to throw our books open
to them any day."
He further re-echoed Kalu’s earlier statement on the
issue that all deductions to both state and local government
allocations in the state have "all been legitimately
made" and that there are "no illegalities"
in the deductions.
Incidentally, chairman of the ICPC, Justice Mustapha Akanbi,
had reportedly told federal officials that Kalu was not one
of the corrupt governors. The governor’s aide said the
ICPC had given this verdict in the heat of a previous attempt
to nail Kalu on corruption charges. "Justice Akanbi asked
them to look elsewhere if they wanted to nail Kalu, that the
Abia governor was not one of the corrupt ones," the aide
stated, asking: "so what has changed between then and
now?".
Pointing out that there could be some political flavour to
the ongoing allegations, the Kalu aide said that he had noticed
the recurrence of the names of certain governors. He, therefore
warned that the authorities should resist the temptation of
the ICPC, the EFCC and the entire anti-corruption crusade
being used as a tool of vendetta against perceived political
opponents and non-conformists.
He said it was heart-wrenching that the Federal Government,
in its anti-corruption crusade, "is allowing elephants
to pass through the eye of the needle while dissipating energy
and resources chasing shadows".
"We are not making case for Kalu. Kalu himself has challenged
them to expose the governors. That is not the way a man who
has skeletons in his cupboard would talk. He has dared them,
let them release the names and details of the financial transactions
instead of regularly making unsubstantiated allegations,"
he declared.
The bulk of the allegation against the governors is that they
have hijacked the monthly federal allocations passed through
them, to the local government areas in their respective states
and that while the councils are starved of funds to deliver
democracy dividends to the people at the grassroots, the governors
have spirited the money to private overseas accounts.
But rather than hold their governors responsible, the ministry
said Nigerians had continued to blame President Olusegun Obasanjo
for failing to deliver.
This conviction on the part of the Federal Government had
compelled the Ministry of Finance to publish the allocations
to the 774 councils since the last four years, even as the
governors were said to have tried to frustrate the publication.
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