About

Monday 18 June 2012

FaroukGate: Police to interrogate 7 reps on Tuesday

The Police Task Force in charge of the N96m bribery scandal will on Tuesday (tomorrow) begin the questioning of seven other members of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on fuel subsidy management. It was revealed to our correspondent that the seven people would be interrogated based on the various roles they played in the probe panel, and their knowledge of the bribe allegation. It has been alleged that the suspended Chairman of the committee, Farouk Lawan his former secretary Boniface Emenalo, collected the sum of 620,000 dollars from an oil magnate, Femi Otedola in order to delist his company from the subsidy probe. The duo were as a result arrested last Thursday, interrogated and detained for two days amid confusion in different quarters in trying to know the true
state of things. They were both released on Saturday morning, but are expected to appear at the Force Headquarters again today for further investigation. The house had as a result of this development had on Friday removed Lawan and his Secretary Emenalo from heading the Ad- Hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy Management. This decision was taken in an emergency session held on Friday. The seven members who will be interrogated in relation to the 3 Million dollars’ scandal are Ali Ahmad (PDP); John Enoh (PDP); Umar Sade (PDP); James Faleke (ACN); Eucharia Azodo (PDP) and Irona Alphonsus (PDP). Also to be interrogated by the Nigerian Police is the Chairman of the House Committee on Narcotics, Adam Jagaba, who was said to have been given the bribe sum to keep. Jagaba has not been straight forward in his defence of his role in the scandal since Lawan’s confession on his deep knowledge of the 3 million dollars’ scandal. It was gathered by Dailypost that the interrogation of the seven members becomes most expedient following what was revealed to the Task Force during Lawan’s interrogation. The Police Special Task Force had asserted that “there are still many people in the House who knew more about the bribe.” A source had equally affirmed that “In a statement, Lawan had claimed that he handed over the bribe money to the House leaders, specifically Jagaba. He must come forward to clear his name. What he says will determine what will happen to Lawan. We must get to the root of this matter,” Otedola may be appearing before the Police Task Force again on Monday as disclosed by an inside source “It is very likely that Otedola will be summoned again to make one or two clarifications. It is not right to say that we are partial. He is the complainant. We are going to call him again to respond to certain things Lawan said,” Dailypost had learnt that the IG of police had put a call across to the Speaker of the House, asking him to make the marked money available, but was asked to put the request in writing. It was reported that a letter has been sent to the Speaker in relation to this request , hence the marked sum may be made available on Monday. Source says “The committee members are expected to appear before the STF this week. It is certain that the exhibit (bribe money) will also be delivered to the police so that the investigations can be wrapped up as soon as possible.” The same source had revealed that whoever fails to appear before the Task Force on Tuesday would be declared wanted by the police.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Please do not hesitate to leave your comment,Thanks