Former Governor of Akwa Ibom State and Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, was reportedly arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC yesterday but returned home late Friday.
Mr. Akpabio, who is also the incumbent minority leader of the Senate, went back again to the EFCC at 11.45 am Saturday, accompanied by his counsel and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Rickey Tarfa and some aides.
He was said to be interrogated over an alleged fraud, mismanagement of state funds, and plunging the state into huge indebtedness.
The EFCC had actually started to look into the case of alleged theft of N108.1billion of Akwa Ibom funds by the former governor in June.
The action followed a petition forwarded to the commission by an Abuja-based lawyer and activist, Leo Ekpenyong who called on federal authorities to probe Mr. Akpabio accusing him of looting Akwa Ibom state treasury.
According to Premium Times, data from the National Bureau of Statistics and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation indicate that under Mr. Akpabio, known for ostentatious spending, Akwa Ibom received a staggering N1. 6 trillion from FAAC between June 2007 and May 2014.
At the time he vacated office on May 29, the state received more, excluding other revenues like Ecological Funds, internally generated revenue etc.
In a new petition to the EFCC dated June 22, and copied to Mr. Buhari and the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, Mr. Ekpenyong gave shocking details of some of Mr. Akpabio’s alleged financial recklessness.
He alleged that between January and December 2014, the ex-governor colluded with two of his top aides to steal a whopping N108.1 billion from the state’s treasury.
Mr. Ekpenyong told the EFCC that the former Government House Permanent Secretary, Etekamba Umoren, and the former Accountant General of the state, Udo Isobara, colluded with Mr. Akpabio to steal the funds.
“Between January –December 2014, it is on record that the trio of Godswill Akpabio, Mr. Etekamba Umoren and Mr. Udo Isobara, made illegal but substantial withdrawals of cash from a designated state government-owned account with Zenith Bank with account number: 1010375881 amounting to N22.1 billion,” he stated in the petition.
“It is worthy of note that reasons for such ungodly cash withdrawals against financial regulations and due process laws range between sundry use and unjustifiable expenditures by Godswill Akpabio and his numerous surrogates and proxies.
“For example, a whopping N18 billion was withdrawn fraudulently from the state FAAC account with the United Bank for Africa in trenches of N10 million and above by Mr. Isobara in a surreptitious manner to conceal their dishonest intention.”
For assisting Mr. Akpabio retire billions of the stolen funds, Mr. Ekpenyong said Mr. Umoren was rewarded with an appointment as Government House chief of staff and now secretary to the state government under Udom Emmanuel’s administration.
The young lawyer further alleged that over N50 billion of Akwa Ibom funds were spent by the former governor during the last general elections.
During the period under review, he said Mr. Akpabio also took out a staggering N18 billion from the state’s treasury under the guise of special services, reception of very important guests and sundry items.
“The cumulative aggregate of these monies stolen by Godswill Akpabio from the coffers of government as pocket money is the annual budget of some states in Nigeria put together,” the petition reads.
He also listed a mouth-watering number of assets acquired by the former governor including multi-billion naira mansions in Ikoyi and Abuja.
Reacting to his invitation for questioning, Akpabio said, “A young lawyer from my state has been petitioning the EFCC accusing me of corruption. So shortly before I got involved in an accident in August, the EFCC summoned me to come and respond to the allegations.
He said, “I wasn’t arrested. I walked in there myself and now I’m back at home. The EFCC operatives were professional. They asked questions, and I answered.”
Mr. Akpabio added, “I am a law-abiding citizen, and whenever I’m summoned to answer questions about how I served my people, I will always respond.
“I urge everyone who has served in public office not to be afraid to explain what they did and how they served.”
The commissioner of information during the administration of Mr. Akpabio, Aniekan Umana, however denied the allegations levelled against Akpabio describing the contents of the petition by Mr. Ekpenyong as falsehood taken too far.
He said the petition betrayed a lack of understanding of the workings of government adding that there are checks and balances to checkmate the unlawful withdrawal of public funds for personal gains.
He concluded saying Akwa Ibom never received some of the bogus amounts claimed to have been received as FG allocation in the petition.
The post Behind The Scenes Look At What Really Landed Godswill Akpabio In EFCC Net appeared first on KokoFeed - Nigerian News For The Young Generation.
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