The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has rebutted a claim by an online publication, SaharaReporters, that the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested one lawyer, Moses Oddiri, to hush up alleged underhand dealings by its chairman, Mr. Ola Olukoyede.
The publication alleged that the EFCC chairman made the DSS arrest Oddiri in order to conceal an alleged deal with Managing Director of the Nigeria subsidiary of Heritage Energy Operational Services Ltd, Mr. Ado Oseragbaje, to steal over N4 billion statutory community development payments.
However, the host communities have punctured the allegations by Oddiri and SaharaReporters, accusing the lawyer of being angry because the EFCC blocked Heritage Energy from paying the money due them into the account of his personal NGO.
“The attention of our clients have been drawn to several publications made by Mr. Moses Oddiri falsely alleging that the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has diverted funds meant for communities in OML 30. This is an outright fabrication of falsehood as there is nothing of such.
“The monies meant for the communities are intact in the Uherevie Communities Development Trust account. The account was not tampered with and was not frozen by the EFCC or any of its officials as wrongly alleged by Mr. Moses Oddiri,” stated the communities in a statement by their lawyer, Chief E. J. Etaghene of Ethiope Barristers and Solicitors.
“It is obvious that the essence of Moses Oddiri’s petition is to use the EFCC to bring those at the helm of affairs of the community to a negotiation table in order for him and his cohorts to reap where they did not sow,” noted the communities.
“This rejoinder therefore becomes necessary in view of the fact that the false narration and accusation peddled by Moses Oddiri and his cohorts is now widely circulated by Saharareporters and other media, both social and print.
“We therefore state emphatically that there is no iota of truth in the allegation made by Mr. Moses Oddiri. He who asserts must prove and the onus is on him to prove how the EFCC withdrew money from the Uherevie Trust Account and diverted it to their account or personal use,” the communities declared.
Also in a statement Friday EFCC, stated that the story, contrived to portray the arrest of Oddiri “on the orders and petition of the EFCC’s Chairman on alleged diversion of funds intended for a community that Moses has been advocating for over the years”, was falsehood taken too far.
“Oddiri’s story is a story of pursuit of self-interests against communal welfare. The Niger Delta Host Community Trust Fund, paid into the bank accounts of two Host Community Benefit Trusts, HCBTs, as prescribed by the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, is the bone of contention.
“Oddiri wanted the funds paid into his Non- Governmental Organisation, NGO’s account in flagrant violation of the PIA,” EFCC clarified, in the statement signed by by Dele Oyewale, Head, Media & Publicity.
Continued Oyewale ” The background to the payment of the funds is this: the EFCC Chairman, incensed by the delayed payment of the fund to two host communities in Delta State, directed that diligent investigations be carried out. Defaulting companies were uncovered and the results of the probe led to the payment of the funds as prescribed by the PIA and Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, guidelines.
“The funds, paid in 2024, were lodged in the bank accounts of the two HCBTs. However, since the payment was made, Oddiri has been on the offensive against the EFCC and its Executive Chairman that it was not paid into his NGO account.
“On the strength of his illegal and self- centred quest, the EFCC has called for a stakeholders’ meeting with community leaders, regulators and representatives of oil companies in the two host communities at two consecutive times, first in Lagos and then in Abuja.
“In one of the meetings, the EFCC Chairman pointed out that, ‘our role is to ensure that funds designated for a particular community are not diverted elsewhere, that unauthorized individuals do not illicitly benefit, and that resources are channeled into tangible development projects such as electricity and potable water'”.
Continued the EFCC spokesman, “Gangsterism and campaigns of calumny against the EFCC Chairman are not new. His spiteful, malicious and unfounded claims of diversion of the funds by the EFCC’s boss had been on different social media platforms, including Sahara Reporters. The Commission is raising a suit against this latest malicious publication by the online portal
“The EFCC is aware that the same asinine claims have severally been made against Heritage Energy Operational Services, HEOS, Ltd. Leaders of the two host communities are aware of his egocentric desires and can be contacted for verification. There are legal suits already initiated against the serial blackmailer by both the EFCC Chairman and HEOS, in this regard, as well as a petition to the Department of State Security, DSS.
The anti-graft agency said it had instructed it’s lawyers to begin legal proceedings against SaharaReporters
“While the EFCC will not be stampeded or blackmailed into compromising extant legal frameworks for the disbursement of the funds to the two host communities, the media is enjoined to always balance its reporting and not allow characters like Oddiri sway it into prejudice and blackmail. The EFCC is focussed on its mandate and will continue to act in the overall best interests of the nation, ” the anti-graft agency pledged.