……. EFCC Discredits petition, says its mischief, designed to smear Lamorde
The People’s Democratic Party senators have distanced themselves from the attempt by the Senate Committee on Public Petitions to drag the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman to the National Assembly for questioning when members resume from vacation.
The PDP senators said that while they are not opposed to any committee performing its oversight function, they felt that inviting Lamorde at this time was inappropriate since such action mooted in the past had failed to produce any result.
The PDP caucus in the Senate said it would not be part of the probe of Lamorde by the Senate and asked the Committee to suspend the action for now.
The statement was jointly issued by the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, Phillip Aduda, Emmanuel Bwacha and Abiodun Olujimi.
It was gathered that a majority of PDP senators were angry that the committee was trying to subvert the Senate plenary by entertaining a petition on the same subject already dealt with by the Senate and immediately raised eyebrows on hearing of the planned summon of Lamorde.
The caucus, in a statement released late on Monday, said the probe was ill-timed and should be discontinued.
“The PDP leadership in the Senate is not against any committee of the Senate performing its oversight duties and or functions, but we feel that this is not the appropriate time to embark on this most important assignment, particularly since this same action was mooted and had failed at previous plenary session.
“We, therefore, urge the committee to suspend its public hearing on this particular matter until a further notice,” the statement said.
The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, headed by Senator Sam Anyanwu, was scheduled to host the EFCC chairman in furtherance of its investigation of a petition written by an indigene of Delta State, Mr George Uboh.
Uboh had alleged in his petition that Lamorde allegedly diverted the proceeds of properties seized by the commission when he served as Director of Operations between 2003 and 2007, as well as his current tenure. He put the mismanaged funds at N1 trillion. The Senate committee had scheduled a sitting with Lamorde and the petitioner on Wednesday at 10.00 a.m.
Meanwhile, there are subtle indications that Lamorde may not honour the invitation.
EFCC also issued a statement last night, saying it was surprised over the claim that the commission diverted N1 trillion when such never happened.
A statement by the EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said that the commission had never seen anything close to N1 trillion since its inception and wondered how those bent on destroying the commission came by the said amount.
Wilson said: “In the first instance, claims of a N1 trillion corruption in EFCC is infantile and assaults the sensibilities of all reasonable stakeholders in the anti-corruption fight.
“Even if EFCC had not returned a kobo of recovered assets in its 12 years existence in addition to the yearly appropriated funds from the Federation Account, it will be nowhere near a trillion naira. This clearly exposes the mission of the so-called petitioner as nothing more than mischief, designed to smear Lamorde.
“More sinister is the discovery that the so-called petition did not follow the procedure for consideration by the Senate. It was sent, not to the senate, but to a member, Senate Peter Nwaoboshi, a first term senator from Delta North.
“Under the Senate rules, petitions meant for consideration by the Red Chamber are sent to the Senate, not to a member of the senate. Also, petitions meant for the Senate are tabled at the plenary, before they are referred to the relevant committees for further consideration.”
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