A former National Auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party, Barr. Ray Nnaji, has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, seeking the investigation of Enugu State governor, Sullivan Chime, over allegations of ‘official corruption’.
A copy of the petition, which was made available to journalists in Enugu over the weekend, was dated May 5, 2015, and titled ‘Official corruption, misappropriation, embezzlement, stealing, forgery and criminal conversion against Governor Sullivan Chime and Chief Ikeje Asogwa (Enugu PDP chairman) – A clarion call for serious investigation’.
The petition was addressed to the chairman of the anti-graft agency.
Nnaji, who explained that he acted as “a patriotic Nigerian and an indigene of Enugu State,”urged the EFCC to intervene in the “open day robbery of the resources of the state by the governor, his close associates and relations.”
The PDP chieftain warned that, if the EFCC fails to take any action, two weeks after the receipt of the petition, he would go to court to compel the anti-corruption agency to comply with his request.
Allegations he asked the agency to investigate include “misappropriation of public funds worth over N12.8bn and forgery of public document (the supplementary appropriation law, 2012), to cover up same.”
The alleged forgery of the 2012 supplementary budget was cited by some members of the Enugu State House of Assembly when they moved to impeach the governor for gross misconduct on Monday.
“Without budgetary provisions and appropriation law backing the said expenditure, Governor Sullivan Chime proceeded to spend public funds belonging to Enugu State to the tune of about N12.8bn in 2012 and misappropriated and diverted the sum into his private use without the required approval by the Enugu State House of Assembly.
“And in order to cover up this criminal and unconstitutional act, Governor Sullivan Chime and his cohort – Chief Ikeje Asogwa and others subsequently proceeded to forge a document titled ‘The Enugu State of Nigeria Supplementary Appropriation Law, 2012.”
“It is an incontrovertible fact that there is no record of debate of this law nor is there any record of passage of the bill preceding the law before it was passed into law for use by the governor,” Nnaji stated.
Nnaji also asked the EFCC to investigate the alleged inflation of the cost of some projects and stealing of public funds through the Enugu State Project Development and Implementation Unit, otherwise known as PD1.
