By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA— The Federal Government, Tuesday, sacked the acting Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, Professor Uriah Angulu, from office.

His sack was contained in a letter dated March 18, 2011, which was signed by Abdullah Yola, on behalf of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN).

The letter which was personally addressed to the ICPC ex-boss indicated that his removal was with immediate effect.

Following his removal, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG, Dr. Rose Abang Wushishi, has been mandated to take over from him in acting capacity pending the appointment of a substantive chairman for the anti-graft commission.

The ousted ex-chairman was expressly ordered to vacate the seat to enable the new appointee to promptly assume duty.

The Federal Government in the said letter maintained that its action in removing Angulu was “in compliance with the provision of section 3(4) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offence Act, CAP. C31, LFN 2004 which states that the chairman shall be a person who has held or is qualified to hold office as a judge of a Superior Court of record in Nigeria.”

It would be recalled that the ICPC had last week, disclosed that it has unearthed a N6 billion fraud at the National Judicial Institute (NJI), alleging that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius katsina-Alu, attempted to prevail upon it to shelve its plans  to commence criminal action against the incumbent administrator of the NJI, Justice Umaru Eri.

Ironically however, the CJN plays a key role in the recommendation of persons to be appointed as chairman of the ICPC.

Justice Eri had refuted the allegations against him, shrugging it off as sheer blackmail, as according to him, the purported fraud took place before he became the administrator of NJI in 2008.