The Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) Okoi Obono Obla, has said that the news of his alleged sack and the sealing of the offices of the panel in Abuja by the police, was the handiwork of corrupt people who have embarked on smear campaign against him.
The police on Friday allegedly sealed the offices of the panel in Abuja over alleged corruption case leveled against Obla. The senior aide to President Buhari was allegedly sacked from his appointment but was said to be dodging the communication relieving him of his appointment so he could use the holiday period to persuade people close to Mr Buhari to talk the government into rescinding its decision.
“They have asked ICPC to start investigating corruption allegations around him,” a source said.
But Obla in a statement he signed on Monday stressed that he is yet to receive an official briefing on the issues since the SPIP’s staff are observing the Eid-El- Kabir holiday and away from their desks.
“Gentlemen of the press, as you all know, the past few days have been aghast with media reports of police sealing the offices of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property (SPIP). My attention was drawn to the unfortunate news items making the rounds and thereafter inundated with calls from members of the public who are seeking to know the true position of events concerning the purported sealing of the SPIP offices in Abuja by armed policemen.”
He noted that the news making the rounds appears to be smear campaign from people with their protectionist agenda in favour of persons being investigated. He added that the pictures being painted of SPIP bears no resemblance to the reality on ground.
“SPIP from inception has worked within the dictates of its mandate and takes tremendous pride in the work it does towards recovering misappropriated government funds.
“SPIP officials have made and continue to contribute vitally to the fight against corruption and daily, we are recovering monies owed the government in billions and calling upon high profile persons and seemingly ‘untouchable’ persons who have illegally enriched themselves from government coffers at the expense of members of the to come forward and answer to their crimes and make refunds of the misappropriated government monies,” he said.
The Presidential aide said further that the efforts of the SPIP in the fight against corruption in Nigeria deserve to be recognized stressing that instead the panel is being dismissed with misleading scare stories and arm-twisting of the Panel officials by highly places Nigerians wishing to protect some persons under investigation and thereby distracting the panel from carrying out its mandate.
“We have examples of many high-profile cases where misappropriated public funds were traced to the personal bank accounts of public servants and rather than explain the source of the funds, they resort to false petitions and unfairly attacking the officials of the panel.
We therefore reiterate SPIP’s commitment to the essential work we do towards fighting corruption in our nation,” he said.
At the time of writing this report the police were yet to issue official statement on the matter. Our correspondent put a call across to the Force Public Relations Officer Frank Mba but he did not pick his calls neither did he respond to a text message sent to him.
In the same vein, the Public relations Officer of the Police Command of the Federal Capital Territory, Anjuguri Manza did not give any information on the matter.
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
