quote:N300m scam: Iyabo Obasanjo at large, says EFCC By Tobi Soniyi and John Alechenu Published: Wednesday, 9 Apr 2008 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Tuesday told an Abuja High Court that the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, was at large.
An official of the EFCC, Mr. James Binang, made this known during the arraignment of a former Minister of Health, Prof. Adenike Grange, and ex-Minister of State for Health, Mr. Gabriel Aduku, in connection with the N300m scam in the Federal Ministry of Health.
Also charged were the suspended Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Prof. Simeon Ogandi; and the Director of Administration, Dr. E.H. Oyedepo.
Others were Hanafi Mohammed; Donald Ekanem; Donatus Inyang; Olomo J.A; Obanla E. Olatunbosun; Henry Onyeagwalam; and Edem A. Bassey.
They were denied bail by Justice Salisu Garba, who ordered their remand in EFCC custody till April 11 when he will rule on their application for freedom.
The anti-graft agency brought 54-count charge bordering on abuse of office, criminal breach of trust and stealing against them.
When the alleged offences were read to Grange and others, they said they understood them but pleaded not guilty.
There were actually 56 charges in the charge sheet. The remaining two charges which were not read in the open court were in respect of Obasanjo-Bello, daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.
Although the EFCC did not list her among the suspects, Binang said she was at large.
He told the court that efforts were being made by the commission to arrest her.
Obasanjo-Bello was reported to have travelled to Cuba last Tuesday with the Education Committee of the Senate, before she was due to be quizzed by the EFCC.
Our correspondents in the National Assembly, however, sighted the senator during the senate’s plenary in Abuja on Tuesday.
The charge against Obasanjo-Bello reads, “That you, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, now at large, sometimes between December 2007 and March 2008 at Abuja within the judicial division of the high court of the Federal Capital Territory while serving as the chairman of the Senate Committee dishonestly received the sum of N10m belonging to the Federal Government having reasons to believe same to be stolen thereby committed an offence punishable under section 317 of the Penal Code.”
Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN) had, while arguing the application for bail for Grange, said that she was a professor of paediatrics who would not fail to appear for trial.
Izinyon argued that Grange had an impeccable record of service and should be granted bail as a matter of course.
Garba, after listening to all the arguments on bail, adjourned ruling to April 11 while substantive trial was adjourned to April 29.
A copy of the charge obtained by our correspondent showed that Grange, Aduku, and Ogandi were charged with 14 offences.
The offences included criminal breach of trust and fraudulent withdrawal of funds.
They were said to have withdrawn various sums of money under the pretext that they were payments for contracts executed by Cyrolom Nigeria Enterprises, HGR Limited, El-Bless Mechanical Works, Xcherith, Itex Furnitures, Moregates and Funke Abayomi Nigeria Enterprises as well as Donaustin Enterprises.
In addition to the above charges, Ogandi was also charged with forging several Local Purchase Orders in the name of fictitious companies.
It was also learnt on Tuesday that the EFCC had lined up 17 witnesses to give evidence against the suspects.
Among the witnesses are seven staff of the Ministry of Health and a clerk to the Senate Committee on Health, I.E.F. Edobor.
Meanwhile, the Senate has said that the scam in the Ministry of Health was not an “isolated case.”
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze, told journalists on Tuesday in Abuja, that ministries, departments and agencies were in a habit of keeping unspent funds from the year’s budget to be shared every December.
He said, “When the revenue profile was reluctantly submitted, we still found out that a lot of things were left out as evident by the problem we have seen in the ministry of health.
“Ministry of Health is not an isolated case. If we dig deep, there are some areas where monies are hidden. We kept harping in the process of budget preparation that some members of the MDAs are in the habit of keeping money to be shared every December.
“If anybody matches what we said then to what has happened in the Ministry of Health, you will see that we have a point.”
___________________ Feel me? Ofu onye ana asi unu abia go. - Ednut Igbo-American . www.airamericaradio.com visit her. Posts: 2454 | From: Mother Earth | Registered: Mar 2001
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Inept Nigerian EFCC refuse to arrrest Iyabo for fraud. They took her words for it without proper paper trail investigation. One fact remains the government money was deposited into a personnal account of a senator is red flag enough to warrant arrest for misuse of public money. READ THIS AND YOU DECIDE.
How we shared N10m - Iyabo Obasanjo; Senators got N.5m each; return tickets to Ghana, etc; Why we did not arrest her - EFCC; ICPC, EFCC at loggerheads over her arrest Idowu Samuel, Abuja With Agency Report Friday, April 11, 2008
CHAIRMAN of the Senate Committee on Health, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, has explained how the Senate Committee on Health expended the N10 million it got from the unspent N300 million 2007 budget of the Federal Ministry of Health.
In a statement written by the embattled Senator to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) about the investigation of the scandal, she said the money was used to sponsor a retreat and a seminar of the committee to facilitate the passage of the Health Policy Bill. In the statement dated March 12, obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday, Obasanjo-Bello said the money was used specifically for the retreat. “We started to expend the money for the retreat from January to pay estacode, hotel rooms and airline tickets were bought for 11 senators and two officials of the committee,’’ she said. “Their hotel rooms were paid for and a consultant in Ghana was hired to arrange our meetings with the Ghanaian Ministry of Health and Ghanaian National Assembly,’’ she added. She added that N500,000 was given to each member of the committee who attended the retreat while their airlines tickets from Lagos to Ghana were also purchased. “The committee had the retreat with 10 members attending for four days at the La Palm Royal Hotel in Ghana,’’ she said. “Monies were also expended on internal (local) transportation to Lagos for all senators. All monies have been fully expended,’’ she added. The retreat which, she said, was held between March 16 and March 21, was not attended by Senators Chimaroke Nnamani and George Akume. “Senators Nnamani and Akume, because they have not indicated that they are going, have not been given any estacode and their tickets have not been bought,’’ she said. On how the money came about, Senator Obasanjo-Bello said: “Sometime in late December 2007, I got a call from the Minister of Health, Adenike Grange, in Abuja that the money from the ministry to sponsor the retreat and seminar was ready. “I told her that we are going to the retreat in February or March, 2008 and that they should just pay for our expenses and for logistics there,’’ she added. “The minister gave the phone to a director in the ministry or the Permanent Secretary (I do not recall who exactly). “The person said that because of the mop-up of money in December, and the delay in the passage of the budget and disbursement of funds, if we do not take the money for the retreat in December, it would be sent back to the treasury. “In order not to delay activities leading to the passage of the bill, I told them to send the money,’’ she explained. The money, she said, was temporarily deposited in the personal account of the Secretary to the Committee, Mr. Angulu, for safety. “The secretary to the committee changed from Mr. Angulu to Mr. Edobor and Angulu handed over all the money to Edobor, who deposited it in to the committee account,’’ she said. Justifying the sponsorship of the retreat, she said: “In the last Senate, the ministry sponsored two retreats for the Senate on the National Health Bill, with one in Jos and the other in Port Harcourt. “Unfortunately, with all the ministry’s effort, the bill was not passed and in this Senate we agreed that the retreat will come after the second reading of the bill and it will be in Ghana,’’ she added. Obasanjo-Bello said it was the normal practice when an executive bill was being sponsored by a ministry, that such establishment would sponsor a retreat or seminar to enlighten the members of the committee. Meanwhile, the EFCC on Thursday said it refrained from arresting the daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, on her alleged sharing of the sum of N300 million with some officials of the Ministry of Health because it lacked the power to do so. The EFCC said it was aware that Iyabo was at the premises of the National Assembly by the time it was looking for her but could not effect her arrest because the senator was covered by constitutional immunity while in the National Assembly. The Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Larmode, disclosed this in Abuja at the venue of official launch of postage stamps in commemoration of the commission’s fifth anniversary, stressing that the inability of EFCC to arrest the senator had nothing to do with selective treatment of alleged offenders which it had hitherto been accused of. Larmode said the EFCC had told the court that Iyabo was at large because of its inability to track her, but added that it had since found out that the senator was out of the country by the time it was looking for her. He affirmed that the commission, indeed, served the senator a letter to appear before it.He said the EFCC had, however, received a letter from the counsel for Iyabo, notifying it about her readiness to appear in person. Larmode said anyone who accused the EFCC of attempting to spare Iyabo on the case pending before it was not familiar with the law, stating that the constitution gave every member of the National Assembly immunity against arrest once they were within the premises of the National Assembly. He said, “nobody can accuse us of selective treatment in the case of Iyabo because by the time we were looking for her, she was in the National Assembly and there is nothing we could do about that. We cannot go to the National Assembly to arrest her because the law did not permit us to do so. “Anyone could go and read the constitution and see what the law says about a case like that. That was why we could not arrest her. Moreover, she had responded through her lawyer that she was not at large and that she was prepared to see us. All we could do is to wait for her. Its is even possible as I am talking with you that she is even waiting for us in the office.” The former Minister of Health and other top officials who were alleged to have shared N300 million belonging to the ministry are currently in EFCC custody. However, the Senate had on Wednesday given Mrs. Obasanjo-Bello a clean bill of health in respect of the allegations levelled against her and members of the Senate Committee on Health, stating that the senators never did anything wrong by taking the offer from the ministry for official assignment. The Senate Committee Chairman on Media Affairs, Senator Ayogu Eze, who made this known said members of the committee on health only used the money to pursue a national assignment on health meant to benefit the entire federation. In a related development, the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) are now at loggerheads over the right to arrest and prosecute Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello. Indications to this development emerged on Thursday following complaints by officials of ICPC that the jurisdiction of the EFCC did not cover the case of fraud and financial impropriety levelled aganst any government official. The officials who refused to be quoted told Nigerian Tribune in Abuja that the EFCC had started the case against Iyabo on a wrong footing and would end up achieving nothing out of it at the end. They said the court would throw out the case aganst Iyabo and others who had been arrested in connection with the scam on the basis that the EFCC lacked the constitutional power to arrest and prosecute them.
Hail Biafra Posts: 1699 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Here we go again...Nigeria and special treatment for suspect like Iyabo Obasanjo. The fight against crime is not for every one. Read this.
HOW OBASANJO, OTHERS ASS OLD BEGGED TO SAVE IAYBO-FROM SENATE HAMMER
Taiwo Adisa, Abuja Monday, April 15, 2008
FURTHER facts emerged at the weekend as to the circumstances leading to the clean bill of health given by the Senate to the Chairman of its standing Committee on Health, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, on the N300 million unspent budget of the Ministry of Health.
The former ministers in the ministry, Professor Adenike Grange, and Mr. Gabriel Adukwu, are currently being prosecuted for their alleged roles in the matter, while Senator Obasanjo-Bello was also charged alongside them. It was gathered that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and some top politicians sympathetic to him intervened in the matter and pleaded with the senators to ensure she was cleared. “The former President actually pleaded with some influential members of the Senate and that pressurised them into giving her the soft landing in the Senate,” a source said. It was gathered that the current Senate had at inception in June 2007, made it a sin for any of its committees to solicit assistance from ministries or agencies in their oversight functions but that the Senate chose to rely on conventions to clear Senator Obasanjo. The Senate Committee under Iyabo Obasanjo received N10 million from the ministry under Prof. Grange and the money was later traced to part of the unspent funds from the 2007 budget illegally kept by the Ministry. When Professor Grange and Mr. Adukwu were arraigned, Senator Obasanjo-Bello was nowhere in the court, prompting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to declare that she was at large. But the Senator, through her counsel, fired back, saying that she had not been served any court summons. Secretary of the Senate Committee on Health, Edobor IEF, had earlier indicated in a press statement that the committee got N10 million from the Ministry of Health, to facilitate the retreat it held in Ghana. The Senate, however, last Wednesday gave the Senator a clean bill of health, saying that she did no wrong. According to Senator Ayogu Eze, the Senate at a closed session listened to the details of the Senate Committee’s involvement in the Health Ministry affair and discovered that the committee did no wrong. He said that the Senate had looked at the legislative practices all over the world, including the United States of America, and discovered that there were avenues for facilitation of committee activities by agencies of government. The clean bill of health came on the heels of a query issued Senator Obasanjo-Bello by the upper chamber the day before. Senator Eze, who addressed the press, said: “We have asked for explanation and in two or three days, I will be in a position to brief the press.” Last Wednesday, Senator Eze, however, said that the Senate at the closed session was fully briefed on the circumstances surrounding involvement of Senate Committee on Health in the ministry’s unspent budget problem and that the members did not overreach themselves.
Hail biafra
[ April 14, 2008, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Waypoint1Biafra ]
Posts: 1699 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Sorry people I've been out of action for some time, for I was serving in Afghan with the UN peace keepers. But to tell you the gospel truth, I'm not surprised as to what's been happening with OBJ's daughter. Like father like, in this case, daughter. After all she's got her father's DNA. 'Nnana' Orji-Uzo Kalu and other were thrown into jail for embezzulment and because her father is the regime's back seat driver, nothing happens to her. Even the senate gave her a clean bill of health, which goes to show that the law maker are scared of kettle calling pot black. The system of "chop make I chop" is still going on in that country. God help us. Her father made away with billions of dollars from the energy leftover, while the country has no light and no one has the bottle to call him to question, no wonder then no one could bring his equally over corrupt daughter to justice. That is Nigeria for you. HAIL BIAFRA THE LAND OF FREEDOM: WE SHALL RETURN ONE DAY
Posts: 80 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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Personally, I should have liked to see a video of Obasanjo's daughter jumping the alleged fence that we were told she jumped when EFCC wanted to arrest her in her home.
I want to see her in the video "running and the jump" over the fence. That would be the most funny video of the year to watch.
Posts: 289 | From: California | Registered: Jul 2003
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Iyabo Obasanjo opts for ‘soft landing’ From Sufuyan Ojeifo in Abuja, 04.24.2008 Thursday, April 24, 2008
NIGERIA, A LAWLESS NATION WHERE GOVT OFFICIALS ARE ABOVE THE LAW. READ THIS FROM A CITIZEN TO THE LAW ENFORCEMENT
Obasanjo-Bello, according to sources in the know, is offering to make herself available only to the Abuja High Court on Tuesday next week when hearing continues in the 56-count charge of graft against the former Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange, and other officials of the health ministry. “She does not want to be arrested or detained by the EFCC at all,” the source said. “Since other accused are on bail, she wants to clear her name without being subjected to the humiliation of detention.” The other option, THISDAY was informed, was that the EFCC should drop the case against her because she believes she has done nothing wrong. “She believes that there is no case against her and that the EFCC should eat a humble pie and admit that fact,” the source said. She had earlier told the British Broadcasting Corpor-ation (BBC) that she was being haunted because of her father, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the immediate past president of Nigeria. The EFCC has, however, vowed to pursue the case to a logical conclusion because she has a case to answer. An official of the anti-graft agency told THISDAY yesterday ........
She had earlier told the British Broadcasting Corpor-ation (BBC) that she was being haunted because of her father, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the immediate past president of Nigeria. The EFCC has, however, vowed to pursue the case to a logical conclusion because she has a case to answer. An official of the anti-graft agency told THISDAY yesterday that there was “no chance” that the EFCC would drop the case against her. “Before she went on to spend the N10million which was her share from the unspent vote, we told her to return the money. We told her it was proceeds from crime. She refused. Instead, she went ahead to hold the purported conference in Ghana just to legitimise the crime,” the official said. THISDAY also saw the letter written to the Senate President by the EFCC requesting to quiz members of the Health Committee, of which Obasanjo-Bello was the chairman. The letter, dated March 27, 2008 with reference no CR 3000/X/ABJ/AFF3 VOL 27/232, was written by Mohammed Babakura on behalf of the Acting Chairman of EFCC and directed to the Chief of Staff to the Senate President. Entitled “Investigation Activities/Letter of Invitation/Senate Committee on Health”, the letter read: “This Office is currently investigating a case of Fraud and Abuse of Office in which the need for the above mentioned committee members to clarify some issues has become imperative. “In the light of this, you are kindly requested to release the Distinguished Senators to honour an interview with the Ag Executive Chairman through the undersigned at Idiagbon House, No. 5 Formella Street, Wuse 2 on 2nd April, 2008 at 10am prompt..... I believe there is another charge called "Resisting Arrest", in addition to stealing public money.
HAIL BIAFRA Posts: 1699 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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