CONTRARY to his insistence on Sunday that he did not meet with or receive any bribe from anybody, documents in possession of The PUNCH
showed that Chairman of the House of Representatives probe panel on
fuel subsidy mismanagement, Farouk Lawal, indeed accepted $500,000 from
billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola.
Clerk of the committee, Boniface Emenalo, also received $100,000 from the businessman.
The sums added up to the $600,000 bribery scandal rocking the House committee which recently exposed how some subsidy thieves robbed the nation of whopping N1.7trn.
Farouk and Emenalo, as the documents, mostly
correspondence, indicated, however let in the Acting Inspector-General
of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, into the “attempt” by Otedola to bribe
them.
Also, there were indications in the correspondence
that Lawan intimated the House committee chairman on Drugs/Narcotics and
Financial Crimes, Adams Jagaba.
Sundry documents
In one of the documents sourced by our correspondents
in Abuja on Monday, Lawan, in a letter to Jagaba, wrote, “Attached (to
the letter) is the sum of five hundred thousand dollars only offered to
me with another promise of two million, five hundred thousand dollars.”
Another letter written by Emenalo to Lawan read, “I
wish to inform you that I was on his invitation, at the residence of
their Chairman, Mr. Femi Otedola, in Maitama (Aso Drive) this morning
and he offered me the sum of one hundred thousand US dollars in two
bundles of $50,000 each. The money is herewith forwarded as evidence.”
Another letter, reference
number,CR:3000/IGP.SEC/STF/FHQ/ABJ/VOL 2/309 indicated that the IG
directed “a discreet investigation into the matter.” The letter was
signed by Commissioner of Police, Special Task Force, Ali Amodu.
Both Jagaba and the police on Monday declined comments on their involvement in the matter.
PUNCH
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