By Peter Okutu

ABAKALIKI—THE management of Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu, Ebonyi State, has been hit by a scandal as the Acting Provost, Dr. Felix Anuebunwa, and three others are involved in an investigation by the Zone 6 Command of Nigeria Police over alleged theft of one Mercedes Tipper.

The investigation followed a petition written by Agama Agama of B. N. Ugwu and Company, counsel to Mr. Phillip Orji, the supplier of the said vehicle, with chassis number 341439, to the college.

In a swift reaction, the Acting Provost denied any wrong doing in the transaction, saying Mr. Orji wanted to dupe the institution of several millions of naira through his dubious business proposal.

In the petition, Mr. Orji’s counsel complained to the police that his client supplied the Mercedes tipper to one Mr. Theophilus Ndubuaku in January 2014 at the cost of N6.5 million, stressing that instead of paying him his money, Ndubuaku, in connivance with the Acting Provost, Ikeije and one Ogbomo Nosa, paid the money into the account of Global Growth Construction Company Limited for which Ogbomo Nosa fronted as a director.

The petitioners alleged that after a search was conducted by the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, it became evident that Nosa was not a director of the three-member company at the time and that the company had never changed its board members since incorporation.

The firm

Alleging that the said Global Growth Construction Company Limited was a conduit through which the money for the vehicle was diverted, the petitioners disclosed that information available to them from the accounts department of the college showed that the Acting Provost and others paid N7.5 million to Global Growth Construction Company Limited, instead of N6.5 million in September 2013, two months before Mr. Phillip Orji imported the vehicle into Nigeria.

While expressing dismay that three weeks after letters of invitation were served on the Acting Provost and the others by Zone 6 Police Command, the four men had remained elusive, the petitioners urged the police to do all in its powers to ensure that the suspects were arrested to explain how a vehicle imported in November 2013, as evidenced by the customs paper, was sold in September 2013 by a company that neither imported nor bought the vehicle.

Am not on the run

— Acting Provost

Continuing, the Acting Provost, Anuebunwa, said though he was out of the state, he was not on the run as speculated by the petitioners, adding that he had petitioned the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 6 that Orji should be arrested for trying to dupe the college of large sums of money.

He said Orji, in connivance with a staff of the college, extorted N1.9 million from the college as part of their expenses on the vehicle and went ahead to force the college to purchase a cooling van it did not order.

“It was when Orji started making fresh request for another N1.6 million, after we paid for the cooling van, that we saw through his dubious practices and decided to petition the police,” Dr. Anuebunwa declared.