N930 MILLION ARMS CONTRACT SCAM: ICPC SET TO PROSECUTE EHINDERO

Sunday Ehindero

Baring last minute maneuvers, the Independent Corrupt practices commission, ICPC would commence prosecution of former Inspector General of Police, Sunday Ehindero over the N930 Million arms contract scam.

Sources at the ICPC office in Abuja told ppointblanknews.com that after months of investigation and evidence from one John Obaniyi, a former Commissioner of Police in Charge of Budget, the former Inspector General of Police has been found culpable in the arms scandal that first broke up in June, 2007.

Highly placed government sources told pointblanknews.com that Ehindero had deceived the Bayelsa Government under now Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan into releasing N930 Million through its former Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim hiding under the guise that there was shortage of arms to tame the rising militants’ activities in the Niger Delta.

Nigerians who find their voices drowned by recent manipulations and open disregard for due process in the handling of the prosecution of about twelve past Governors may now have something to buoy their hope in the Country. A rejuvenated commitment to the anti-graft war recently led to an invitation to the nation’s new police boss, Mr. Mike Okiro to shed more light on an alleged N930 Million grant from Bayelsa State. At issue, the ICPC wanted to know if Nigerian Police after receiving the money from Bayelsa did procure arms and if same were safely delivered to the Bayelsa State Command of the Nigerian police.

Police Chief Okiro was said to have categorically denied any knowledge of the said transaction or receipt of any arms for the express purpose of staving off armed insurgency in Bayelsa State and its environs. ICPC was said to have then intensified its probe of the various personalities involved in the N930 Million deal.

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The trail led to Sunday Ehindero and John Obaniyi as the principal master-minds of the entire scam. It was said that when the money was paid to the Nigerian police in 2006 through the office of the Commissioner of police in charge of Budget headed by Obaniyi, he decided to travel the now familiar route Nigerian public officials by paying the money into a personal bank account.

The money kept in the private bank account with the active connivance of Ehindero reportedly, in six months yielded an interest of N40 Million. Obaniyi and Ehindero would later move the money from the private account to an unknown destination.

According to an ICPC source “we have all the tracking and movement of that money and from our investigations over the months, we have no doubt that the former Inspector General of Police knew more to the disappearance of the N930 Million.”

The source added, “from reports gathered from the new IG, it is clear that there was no purchase of arms by the police with the money they got from the Bayelsa people and no one seems to know where the money is now. Our conclusion is that Ehindero still has the money and that is what he is going to be prosecuted for.”