The Presidency may have moved against former
Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, over her allegations that the
Federal Government under the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan
squandered the over $67 billion left by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration,
with the arrest of a consultant to the Ministry, Tom Chiahemen, publisher
of National Accord.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences
Commission (ICPC) had arrested Chiahemen on Wednesday over his role in the
advertisements placed by the Ministry of Education while Ezekwesili held sway
as Minister.
According to Chiahemen, the ICPC officials were of the view that
Cattigan Communications, a company which he had interest in, could be one of
the companies used as a conduit pipe for siphoning government funds and “they
told me pointedly that it was possible the whole advert jamboree during the
tenure of Dr. Ezekwesili as Education Minister could be a hoax”.
The latest development seems to be a way to get back at
Ezekwesili, who had ‘ridiculed’ the Presidency by trying to open the Pandora’s
Box.
Ezekwesili was not to go away with that bold statement
unchallenged. From the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor to Ministers and
Special Advisers to the Presidency, Ezekwesili got verbal lashes which she also
replied.
In a statement made available to newsmen at the weekend in
Abuja, Chiahemen stated: “Following several telephone calls I received from
colleagues, friends and family members, including visits to my office and home,
I wish to confirm that I was invited, arrested and detained for over seven
hours by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences
Commission (ICPC) at its headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday. I was also asked
to report back at 10 a.m. today (Thursday) and was kept for over three hours
before a lawyer-friend arrived to sign my bail forms. From 10 a.m. when I
arrived at the Commission’s headquarters on Wednesday to honour the written
invitation, I was not allowed to leave the ICPC until 5:12 p.m.
“In summary, I would say that I was questioned over the
advertisements placed in several Nigerian newspapers by the Federal Ministry of
Education during the tenure of Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, between August 2006 and
May 2007. The ICPC had, in a letter dated March 4, 2013 (with reference No.
ICPC/CH/FIU.2/126 and addressed to me, said it was investigating ‘allegations
that bordered on the violation of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related
Offences Act 2000.’ It added that pursuant to Section 28 of the said Act, I was
required to appear before the undersigned (Adedayo A. Kayode, Head, Financial
Investigation Unit) on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at the ICPC headquarters, Abuja
by 10.00 hours.
“I arrived the ICPC headquarters a few minutes to 10 a.m. and
spent a few minutes at the reception carrying out all the procedures including
surrendering of my telephone handsets, before I was shown the office of Mr. A.
A. Kayode. I was handed over to one female official of the unit who took me into
a tiny room with a big table surrounded by about four chairs.”
That was when the quiz commenced.
“Without any preamble, she asked me to say all I knew and/or did
with the Federal Ministry of Education between 2006 and 2007 while I was a
staff of Independent Newspapers Limited. I explained to her that a company in
which I owned majority shares, Cattigan Communications Limited, was appointed
in August 2006 by the Federal Ministry of Education to handle media buying and
placements (of advertisements) for the Ministry. In that capacity, I explained
to the ICPC official, Cattigan Communications Ltd was expected to handle the
placement/payment of all public notices, announcements and other
publicity/promotions materials from the Ministry for public/broadcast in the
approved national dailies and electronic stations.
“I went further to recall that in the print media, which
Cattigan Communications Ltd handled mostly, various advertisements running into
almost N30 million were placed and paid for by the Federal Ministry of
Education.
“I explained to the lady the circumstances that led to the
appointment of Cattigan Communications Ltd to handle media buying/placements
during the Education Sector Reform Programme of the Ezekwesili/Obasanjo
administration. I told her that the company was nominated and presented to the
Ministry by correspondents of the various national media organisations covering
the education sector, under the umbrella organisation, Education Correspondents
Association of Nigeria (ECAN).
“After listening to my explanations, she said she believed my
story because it tallied with the findings by the ICPC investigators. She told
me they had been to the Independent Newspapers, my former place of work, and
all that. She however asked if I had any documentary evidence to prove that my
company was appointed by the Ministry to handle the job and whether there were
any receipts to back up payments that were made to Cattigan Communications Ltd.
I told her if I searched my house, I could still locate the letter appointing
Cattigan Communications Ltd and other receipts/acknowledgements of the
payments. I was then given 10 minutes to produce the above documents from my
house, which is not far away from ICPC headquarters.
“To my utter surprise, when I presented the original copy of the
said letter dated August 24, 2006 and other documents, the ICPC officials
changed their posture. First, they excused me from the interrogation room for
about 10 minutes, during which the lady and three others went over my documents
and discussed inaudibly among themselves.
“When I was invited back into the interrogation room, I was
handed an entirely different form which indicated that I was under arrest. I
sought to know if I could call in my lawyer to guide and bail me, but they
chorused: ‘no,’ that they don’t allow lawyers to bail people. Then I asked them
to explain why I was under arrest.
“To my bemusement, the lady said I lied because the letter dated
August 24, 2006 appointing Cattigan Communications Limited to handle advert
placements for the Ministry was looking newer and neater than the letter sent
to me only three days ago (March 4, 2013) by the ICPC. They all argued and
insisted that there was no way a letter issued in 2006 could look so new. I
only swore and stood by my word that the letter was indeed given to me by the
Ministry in 2006 and that I was touching or bringing it out from the file for
the first time, as there had been no need to touch it before now.
“Their second complaint was that I wrote two different letters
to the Minister of Education on the same day (January 23, 2007) claiming two
different sums of money (N33,395,734.20 and N19,501,327.95). My explanation was
that the second letter was only a follow-up on the first letter to adjust the
number of pages that were to be placed in newspapers with the available funds,
in cheque form. I told the ICPC officials that the first letter had proposed a
total of 125 pages of adverts to be placed in 12 different national dailies (The Punch, Daily Independent, Daily
Champion, THISDAY, Daily Sun, The Guardian, The Nation, Leadership, Daily
Trust, New Age and New Nigerian) at the cost of N32,348,195.13
plus VAT of N1,047,539.07), totalling N33,395,734.20. The second letter also
dated 23/1/2007 was written in response to the need to reduce the number of
pages of adverts and the number of newspapers to publish the adverts within the
sum of N20 million that was readily available to the Task Team to use for the
payment of adverts at the time. This second letter was asking the Minister for
the release of the sum of N19,501,327.95 (as against the earlier letter that
was requesting for N33,395,734.20).”
Also, according to the publisher, the issue of receipts and
invoices used in the transaction also came up. “The ICPC wanted me to show
evidence that the N28.2 million that the Federal Ministry of Education paid to
Cattigan Communications was paid to the various newspapers listed.
“They again wanted me to prove that the newspapers said to have
been paid the various sums of money actually published the adverts for the
Ministry. I told the ICPC officials that I had collected both the tear sheets
(pages of newspapers showing the adverts) and receipts from the various
newspapers and handed them over to the Ministry’s Task Team led, then, by Dr.
Okey Ikechukwu.
“One of the ICPC officials did ask me how much of the money went
to Dr. Ikechukwu and I said as far as the adverts placed in the print media
were concerned, each of the correspondents was required to forfeit one per cent
of their commission to Cattigan Communications to settle the bank’s COT, while
each correspondent, who was a member of ECAN, contributed five per cent of
their commission to the treasurer of the association.
“The ICPC officials were of the view that Cattigan
Communications could be one of the companies used as a conduit pipe for
siphoning government funds and they told me pointedly that it was possible the
whole advert jamboree during the tenure of Dr. Ezekwesili as Education Minister
could be a hoax.”
Source: Daily Independent
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