Corruption: EFCC arrests Ohakim, quizzes Lamido

Also, former governor of Jigawa State Sule Lamido submitted himself at the Abuja head offices of the EFCC, yesterday.Commission spokesman Wilson Uwujaren said both Ohakim and Lamido were concurrently questioned by operatives of the EFCC over allegations of financial crimes.Uwujaren said Ohakim was asked to report on Wednesday but he failed to do so.He said […]

Also, former governor of Jigawa State Sule Lamido submitted himself at the Abuja head offices of the EFCC, yesterday.
Commission spokesman Wilson Uwujaren said both Ohakim and Lamido were concurrently questioned by operatives of the EFCC over allegations of financial crimes.
Uwujaren said Ohakim was asked to report on Wednesday but he failed to do so.
He said EFCC agents arrested the former governor at his Asokoro residence in Abuja and took him to their head office in Wuse II.
Uwujaren said the former Governor is being interrogated by detectives over allegations of financial crimes committed when governor between 2007 and 2011.
He said of particular interest to the Commission is how the former governor acquired some properties.
EFCC sources said some assets were traced to him by investigators and suspected to have been acquired with stolen state funds.
Daily Trust gathered that Ohakim is being questioned over an initial allegation of misappropriating N18 billion bond loans obtained on behalf of Imo state government.
He is also said to have been investigated over alleged cash withdrawals of about one billion naira made from the state government accounts on the eve of his departure as governor.
Uwujaren said Lamido was quizzed over his involvement in the award of contracts when he was Jigawa state governor to companies which were connected to his family members.
He recalled that the sons of the former governor were arrested last year over alleged pilfering of the state government funds and laundering same through their company accounts.
Daily Trust reported last year that cases of large-scale corruption against senior politicians run on for years in the courts and hardly lead to convictions, with some of the rare convictions getting presidential pardon.
At least 14 former governors have been standing trial for many years, with no end in sight for their cases, which typically involve allegations of stealing several billions from public coffers.
A number of former ministers and Federal lawmakers have also been facing long-drawn graft trials, being prosecuted by the anti-graft agency.
Some of the longest-running corruption cases involve former Governors Peter Odili (Rivers), Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa), Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu), Attahiru Bafarawa (Sokoto), Orji Kalu (Abia), Jolly Nyame (Taraba), Saminu Turaki (Jigawa), Joshua Dariye (Plateau), Rasheed Ladoja (Oyo) and Ayo Fayose (Ekiti).
Most of these cases started at least 7 years ago.
While his counterparts have been charged to court, Odili has never been arraigned because of a perpetual injunction judgement against arrest which he obtained in March 2008 and which still subsists.
Other corruption cases against former governors which have been dragging on in the courts are those of Mohammed Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Aliyu Akwe Doma (Nasarawa), Adebayo Alao-Akala (Oyo), Gbenga Daniel (Ogun) and Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa).
The cases have been stalled mostly by series of objections raised by the suspects, while EFCC has also been blamed for lack of diligent prosecution.
Former Governors Lucky Igbinedion of Edo and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa are the only ex-governors who have so far coughed out part of the money they stole, through plea bargains.
Their Adamawa counterpart Boni Haruna was on trial for six years until January this year when he was cleared by a court on the eve of his appointment as minister.
A former Plateau governor, Mr Michael Botmang, had been on trial since July 2008 for pocketing N1.5 billion state funds up till the time of his death in January.
Perhaps the most dramatic alleged corruption case involving a governor was that of former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, not least because the amount in question was unprecedented.
In December 2006, EFCC issued a report of investigation into the Rivers State finances in which it said over N100 billion was diverted under Odili.
But the State High Court, based on a case filed by the state government, ruled that only the House of Assembly is empowered by the Constitution to supervise and investigate the utilisation of state resources.
Armed with this judgement, the Rivers State Government then proceeded to the Federal High Court which in March 2007 nullified the EFCC report and issued a perpetual injunction restraining the commission from investigating the state government.
Of the first set of four former governors to be prosecuted after they left office in May 2007, not one of them has had his case concluded.
In the subsequent cases, only the ones of Boni Haruna, Igbinedion and Alamieyeseigha reached stage of judgement on the substantive matter.
While graft cases run on for years, some of them that resulted in conviction ended up getting presidential pardon.
Alamieyeseigha, who was convicted of multi-billion fraud in 2007 and had to forfeit assets to the government, was granted a presidential pardon by President Goodluck Jonathan in March 2013.
Commenting on the long-drawn graft cases, former chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) Justice Mustapha Akanbi had told Daily Trust  in Ilorin at the time that some judges are lackadaisical in adjudicating corruption cases.