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The Abia State Government has dragged the immediate past governor of the state, Okezie Ikpeazu, to the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of misappropriation of N10 billion airport project money.
Armed with a 360-page forensic audit report, which indicted the immediate past administration, the current administration of Governor Alex Otti is seeking to recover the money, according to the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr Ferdinand Ekeoma.
Governor Otti had, last week, vowed to publish the KPMG audit report and recover the money, insisting it was either N10 billion or the airport.
Ekeoma disclosed that the EFCC has invited the major players in the immediate past administration over the matter and advised the former Commissioner for Information and Trade and Investment, Chief John Okiyi Kalu and others who have been defending the Ikpeazu administration to go and tell their stories to the anti graft agency.
The commissioner said: “They have the opportunity to put up the necessary defence; let them go to the EFCC, with all the documents. In any case, EFCC has already started inviting most of the actors involved.”
Ekeoma noted that Governor Otti did not mention names when he spoke at John Hopkins University in the United States.
He said: “He (Governor Otti) didn’t even say anybody has been found guilty. You discover that about 48 hours after the governor made that statement, the spokesman of the former governor shouted and boasted that they were going to upload documents to show how we have been lying.
“Till today, they have not published any documents. They handed them over to me. I wouldn’t want to call them social media e-rats, because they even know that most of the documents they are circulating are indicative: some of them are either forged or fake, and all the rest of them.
“For example, some of the documents they were parading showed where the governor issued an Exco resolution, directing the Hon. Commissioner for Works to move the funds set aside for the Abia airport; to re-channel these funds for reconstruction of roads.
“In the first place, the governor does not issue an Exco resolution. And look at that document, it has no reference. They know what they are doing; one document has multiple originals. We are talking about N10 billion that was transferred in a COVID-19 year in 2020 when there was a global meltdown, they just moved it.
“Traditional rulers visited you, you now changed your mind and decided not to go ahead with the airport project, but still went ahead to transfer a whopping N10 billion to that construction company.
Meanwhile, you had transferred the money before approaching the House of Assembly for approval.
“Now, when you realised that you didn’t want to do the airport again, you couldn’t ask the construction company to return the money, you now directed the company to start distributing the money into dozens of accounts.
“So, is the construction company a bank? Was the company the Accountant-General of the state? They shouldn’t be that shameless to even respond, because what they did was despicable. N10 billion is not N10, 000, for Christ’s sake. So, let’s leave them to EFCC”.
