By EBERE WABARA [email protected] 08055001948

THIS week, I dedicate this column to Prince Benjamin Benedict Apugo, Ochiagha/Oparaukwu Ibeku An­cestral Kingdom of Abia State, as I profusely extract, unedited, from his recent publication. This decision is informed by the profound issues con­tained in the robust document, which I find quite educative, informative, instructive and entertaining!

One had thought that T. A.’s lying and deceptive tendencies would have ended with his leaving office as gov­ernor.

If there is anybody in Abia State, who has a pending case with the EFCC, it is no other person than T. A. Orji who is still on bail.

It is indisputable that T. A. was ar­rested and arraigned in a Lagos High Court by the EFCC for looting Abia State funds when he was chief of staff to former governor Orji Uzor Kalu. (See Page 32 of TELL MAGA­ZINE edition of June 25, 2007). The case is still pending.

Indeed, T. A. was in EFCC net for 90 days, and was never part of the electioneering campaigns that pre­ceded the governorship election in the state in 2007.

It is public knowledge that T. A. was still in Kirikiri Maximum Prison, Ikoyi, Lagos, when he was declared winner of that election. It is also pub­lic knowledge that prior to his being declared winner of the governorship election in Abia State in 2007, a size­able number of Abia women staged a peaceful demonstration against his emergence as governor of the state, citing the looting of funds belonging to Abia State when he was chief of staff.

I am not talking of funds looted when he was governor of the state. But it is important to point out that a group known as Save Abia Initiative for Change had in a recent petition to EFCC accused T. A. Orji of embez­zling N474 billion while he was gov­ernor of Abia State, following which operatives of the EFCC visited the state early in January 2016 to conduct investigations which lasted for four days.

In the course of their stay in Abia State, the EFCC operatives took pho­tographs of T. A. Orji’s properties in­cluding the lands he forcefully took from their rightful owners.

These lands include and are not limited to those at Nkala Ibeku, old Umuahia, Ministry of Lands prop­erty, Umuahia main market (where he is currently building a private hous­ing estate), old Umuahia Timber Shed (where he is also building another pri­vate housing estate), Ajata Ogwuru, Garki Umuahia (where he is building a shopping mall). Others are Isi­court Gravel Market, Umuhute, Ihie, Umuoho, Umuana, Mbom, Emede, Urban and several others.

Related News

It will, therefore, be a great injus­tice to the people of Abia State and a slap on President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war if for whatever reason the EFCC fails to re-arrest T. A. Orji and take him back to prison where he came from to as­sume the position of governor. I be­lieve that nothing will constitute an impediment to the EFCC from taking T. A. Orji back to the prison since he no longer enjoys immunity.

It is important to note that T. A. had boasted before now that his old file with the EFCC had been destroyed following an agreement he reached with the former chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, to give two opera­tives of the anti-graft agency who are of Igbo extraction (one from Isiala Ngwa and the other one from Isui­kwuato) juicy appointments in the present Abia State government.

  1. A. Orji also boasted that having destroyed the old case file, he had faked-in Prince B. B. Apugo’s name because of the popularity he (Apugo) wields among his people, which di­minished T. A. while he was a gov­ernor. But I am happy that the EFCC now has a new helmsman, a devel­opment which will make T. A. not to have a hiding place.

Following from this, I am calling on the EFCC as a matter of urgency to reopen T. A.’s old case file, and bring up the new case file against him with a view to re-arresting and subsequently prosecuting him in line with the anti-graft war of the present administration.

It is my view that T. A. should not be allowed to parade himself in the hallowed Senate Chamber of the Fed­eral Republic of Nigeria (where he is supposed not to be in the first place), and he should not be allowed to move freely when he has pending cases of monumental looting, fraud and forg­ery at the EFCC.

I hope the present anti-corruption crusade of the APC as a party and the government of Mr. President will spur the anti-corruption agencies to help recover Abia funds looted by T. A. Orji because Abia lacks infrastruc­tural facilities such as airport, roads, markets, hospitals, schools, electric­ity, and has the highest number of un­employed youths.

Talking about morals, T. A. should know that he is morally debased. Has he forgotten so soon that before he was elected governor in 2007, he appeared before a dreaded shrine in Igboland naked and in chains just to become governor?

It, therefore, follows that if a man could go to that length to become governor, there is no limit to what he could do to achieve his fraudu­lent ambition.Having come from the same village with T. A. and being age mates, I know him

I had thought that T. A. having known how his family mischievously sold Chief Nnanta Osuagwu’s parcel of land to send him (T. A.) to school should have covered his face in shame instead of counting himself among the educated elite, having acquired his education with ill-gotten money.