A group known as the Integrity Group, IG, has requested the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, to investigate the immediate past governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi for embezzling over N70bn.
The group disclosed that the money allegedly embezzled by the now Minister of Transport was generated from secret sales of state owned assets while he was in office as Rivers governor.
IG, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Sunday by its coordinator, Livingstone Wechie, stated that it was armed with documents that implicates Amaechi as defrauding the state.
It stressed that it was inappropriate for Amaechi to be calling for a probe of various agencies under his Ministry for corrupt practices when he himself is corrupt.
Amaechi, had late last year as Minister of Transport ordered a probe into the financial activities of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, MAN, Oron, Akwa Ibom State and N18 billion remittances to the institution by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, in the last five years. This however followed allegations of financial recklessness and large scale fraud leveled against the academy’s rector, Mr Joshua Okpo.
But IG asserted “that Rotimi Amaechi has no right whatsoever to talk of corruption probe, as corruption cannot probe corruption.”
It alleged that Amaechi who had admissibly confessed and not denied these allegations has neither instituted any legal action in any court against his indictment by the Justice George Otakpo Omereji’s Commission of Inquiry Report as contained in the Government white paper or the Integrity Group documentary backed evidence.
According to the statement, “The credibility of Mr President’s war on corruption through the EFCC and ICPC is in the balance, and will continually suffer grave casualty as long as the likes of Rotimi Amaechi and others with the cloak of corruption, who put Rivers state for sale with impunity, continue to boast and walk freely under federal covers to the dismay of the world.
“It is therefore on this premise that we totally agree with the representations made by the Rivers state Commissioner of information, Dr. Austin Tam-George, that the Rivers state government should recover stolen funds and fight corruption at all levels.”
