By Olusola Fabiyi
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has
received a fresh petition against a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator
Godswill Akpabio.
The petition was titled “Petition against former
Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State for gross and uncommon abuse of
public trust.”
Copies of the petition were also sent to
President Muhammadu Buhari and the Director General of the State Security
Service, Lawal Daura.
This was the third petition against the former
governor who is now a member of the Senate and was recently appointed Minority
Leader in the upper chamber.
In the latest petition dated August 3, 2015 and
was received by the commission on August 5, 2015, the petitioner, Leo
Ekpenyong, said he had discovered what he called “uncommon diversion of Akwa
Ibom tax payers’ money for the acquiring of massive properties by the former
governor.”
Ekpenyong, who wrote from chamber, Leo Ekpeyong
and Co, said, “The properties owned by Akpabio and his surrogates are itemised
as follows:
“Eleven blocks of four luxury flats, making it a
total of 44 luxury flats, registered in the name of Prince Ukpong Akpabio. The
location is Woji, Port-Harcourt in Rivers State.
“It is worthy of note that former Governor
Akpabio owns a total of 27 estates different from the ones mentioned in our
earlier petitions.
“Some of the housing estates have between 25 and
75 high rise premium units.
“These estates are located in the Lekki
area(Ikate Elegushi Estate), Lekki Phase 1, near Pan African University off
Chevron roundabout (Lagos State).
“Others are Banana Island in Ikoyi, Gbagada on
the mainland as well as Ogunlana Drive on the mainland.”
Ekpenyong had earlier sent two petitions to the
commission against the former governor.
The first was dated June 8 while the second one
was dated June 22.
The petitioner told our correspondent on
Wednesday that he had appeared thrice before the commission’s investigators to
“adopt the petitions.”
He said on the three occasions that “I backed up
the petitions with oral testimonies and explained to the investigators that I
was ready to testify against the former governor.”
Spokesperson for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwajuren,
told our correspondent that he did not know if the commission had received the
latest petition.
He said, “Several petitions are sent to the
commission on a daily basis and none of the petitions is sub-item in my office.
“Because of this, I might not know the details
of the petition. That’s the situation. “
The former governor could not be reached for his
reaction as of time of going to press.
Calls made to his telephone line indicated that
it was switched off, while a text message sent to him was not delivered.
Culled from The
Punch newspaper
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