*Speaker’s security withdrawn

BY FRANCIS IGATA

Worried by the revelation that Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State allegedly forged the 2012 supplementary appropriation law, an Enugu-based lawyer has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to quickly investigate the matter.

This is even as the security personnel attached to the embattled Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly, Eugene Odo, was yesterday, withdrawn by the executive.

In a seven page petition to EFCC dated May 5, made available to Sunday Vanguard, the petitioner, Mr. Ray Nnaji,   requested that the EFCC should investigate Chime and Ikeje Asogwa, Managing Director, Enugu State Housing Corporation for official corruption, misappropriation, embezzlement, stealing, forgery and criminal conversion.

The allegations in the petition reads:”misappropriation of public funds worth over N12.8 billion and forgery of public document (supplementary appropriation law 2012). Without budgetary provisions and appropriation law backing the said expenditure, Governor Sullivan Chime proceeded to spend public funds belonging to Enugu State to the tune of N12.8 billion and misappropriated and diverted the sum into his private use without the required approval by the Enugu State House of Assembly.

“And in order to cover up this criminal and unconstitutional acts, Chime and his cohort, Ikeje Asogwa and others, subsequently proceeded to forge a document titled, ‘The Enugu State of Nigeria Supplementary Appropriation Law, 2012’.

“It is an incontrovertible fact that there is no record of debate of this law nor is there any record of passage of the bill preceding the law before it was passed into law for use by the Governor.

“Governor Chime created an amorphous body or organ under his direct use and supervision called Project Development Implementation unit known as PDI. This organ became a conduit pipe through which the state funds are siphoned by Chime and his former Chief of Staff, Ifeoma Nwobodo.

“The activities of PDI were shrouded in secrecy and were used to execute over inflated projects whose values run into billions of Naira without proper valuation whereas in the budget, the total value of work to be executed by PDI was not up to N500,000,000 in every year. A few examples of these bogus projects includes: the judiciary auditorium in the Enugu High Court, Renovation of Nnamdi Azikwe Stadium and the new court hall at the Enugu State High Court.

It would be recalled that the Enugu State House of Assembly led by Eugene Odo and 13 other members had last Monday, ordered the Clerk, Christopher Chukwurah to serve Chime an impeachment notice over allegations of forgery of 2012 supplementary budget. The action factionalized the House as a group of eight members in the 24 member House suspended Odoh and elected a new Speaker, Chinedu Nwamba.