Police probe fuel subsidy panel members’ accounts

Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar | credits:

Police have written to the Financial Intelligence Unit to get the account details of Farouk Lawan and other members of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on fuel management.

Our correspondents gathered on Thursday that the Special Task Force handling the case was desirous of getting the account details of the committee members in order to broaden its investigation into the $620, 000 bribery scandal.

The committee members include Ali Ahmad (PDP); John Enoh (PDP); Umar Sade (PDP); James Faleke (ACN); Eucharia Azodo (PDP); Irona Alphonsus (PDP); Farouk Lawan (PDP) and Boniface Emenalo, a civil servant.

Investigators were convinced that the committee members had questions to answer going by new findings that indicated that the committee received about N11bn bribe from other oil marketers, apart from the $620,000 collected by Lawan and Emenalo from Zenon Oil and Gas Chairman, Femi Otedola.

“The STF is steadily making progress in the case, but in order to unravel every hidden fact, it is seeking the assistance of the Financial Intelligence Unit to avail it of the bank account details of all the committee members. This will reveal recent lodgments or withdrawals from their bank accounts,” a source confirmed.

The PUNCH learnt that Lawan did not show up at the Force Headquarters on Thursday, but rather appeared at the National Assembly where he spent some time. Emenalo and other committee members are scheduled to visit the STF on Friday (today).

Meanwhile, the Lord Bishop, Ife Anglican Diocese, Rt Reverend Oluranti Odubogun, has said the revelations emanating from the fuel subsidy probe by the House of Representatives reflected lack of integrity on the part of the country’s political class.

Odubogun spoke at the inauguration of the Asiwaju of Ife, Chief Alex Duduyemi, and the wife of the Ooni of Ife, Mojisola, as the grand patron and grand matron of the St Silas Anglican Church, Ajebamidele, Ile-Ife.

A statement by the spokesperson for the church, Dr Toyin Jegede, on Thursday, quoted Odubogun as describing the country’s political class as selfish and ungodly.

He said, “It is unfortunate that our leaders no longer have the fear of God in their dealings with the common man and have resolved to use our commonwealth for their benefit alone.”

Odubogun warned that the country’s politicians were on the road to self destruction if they failed to desist from corruption.

He described the rising spate of insecurity in the country as a reaction to the insensitivity of the government occasioned by rising poverty level.

The bishop charged President Goodluck Jonathan to set machinery in motion for the convening of a Sovereign National Conference.

He said an SNC would provide Nigerians with an opportunity to discuss the way out of this present predicament.

“Every group must have a say over the future of this country because the present structure is not all inclusive, hence we need to channel a way forward for the nation,” he stressed.

via Punch