Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has vowed that pressure currently being mounted by the Nigerian elites would not slow down the ongoing fight against corruption and graft.
Said he: “we get regular messages from some Nigerian elites saying cool down.”
The Vice President who held a meeting today in his office with a delegation from the Muslim Congress of Nigeria (MCN) made it clear that the pressures on the presidency to relent in the anti-corruption fight would not shake the resolve of the government to push on until it is eliminated.
“It is a very strange morality that some of those people have very complicated but cutting across all tribes and religious differences.”
He observed that the masses of the Nigerian people have a clearer understanding of right and wrong, adding: “the masses don’t have that problem.”
Osinbajo said that a few of the elites are however asking that government should merely ask the looters of the commonwealth of the nation to return the money and go.
Professor Osinbajo is happy that “a new tribe of Nigerians who would not compromise their values but would maintain a sense of right and wrong is now emerging.
“The man on the street is very clear, so whatever some of these elites say, we shall keep our focus on the masses who voted for us.”
The Vice President said that it is unacceptable that in the last 16 years, there is not a single federal government completed road project, not to even talk of rail.
The reason, he stressed, is corruption, adding that the cost of projects are often inflated as people entrusted with public trust struggle to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses.
He noted that it was the same inordinate desire for enrichment that explains why money meant to procure arms were being distributed among persons at a time when the territorial integrity of the nation was being attacked.
“The insurgency has gone on for six years because government could not adequately equip the military.”
The Vice President assured Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari and himself would not relent, saying that the president and himself have no other agenda but  “the progress of this country.”
He reassured that the President and him are extremely focussed on what needed to be done, saying: “we will focus on critical things, infrastructure and social investments.”
Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation from the Muslim Congress of Nigeria, Imam Abdulahi Shuaib expressed the support of the organization to the government in its programmes, including anti-corruption.
He said that the choice of the President and Vice President were made by God Himself during last year’s presidential election.
The Vice President also received delegations from the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) and the Facility for Oil Sector Transparency Reform (FOSTER), a group composed of NGOs involved in different issues in the Niger Delta areas.
At his courtesy meeting with the NSE, Professor Osinbajo praised the engineers and highlighted the importance of the profession in national development.
“There is no question at all that engineers are central to the development of the society.”
The NSE delegation was led by its President, Engineer Otis Anyaeji.
Speaking earlier while receiving FOSTER, the Vice President restated the government’s commitment to the development of the Niger Delta. He also commended the group for coming together to develop a common framework to support the process of development in the area. The group which said it adopted a common framework in order to avoid duplication was led by Mr. Richard Oshowole. [myad]

About 169 companies that registered as contractors with the Nigeria Railway Corporation and which benefited from rail projects valued at N1 trillion are no where to be found.
The House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on Failed Rail Contracts raised alarm during the investigative hearing at the National Assembly that none of the 169 companies invited by the committee had showed up.
The Chairman of the committee, Johnson Agbonnayinman (Ikpoba/Okha Federal Constituency), said the need to invite the contractors was important, but lamented that efforts to reach them had so far proven fruitless.
Agbonnayinman added that so far, only the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) had responded to the committee’s letter.
The committee chairman made it clear to the Railway Corporation: “You are duty bound to produce the contractors. They are nowhere to be found; they are not faceless but yet they cannot be reached.
“You gave them the job, so you should produce them; we are holding you responsible.”
The committee also asked the corporation’s MD, Adeseyi Sijuwade, to make available the agency’s record of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) between 2010 and 2014. He is also to tell the committee what the IGR was used for.
In response, the MD said the IGR was used to augment the agency’s overhead budget.
Drama, however, started when the committee, acting on documents before it, asked the MD to explain all he knew and the reason behind his request to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation for a return of N2 billion or 20 per cent of the corporation’s pension fund to the corporation in December 2014.
Responding, Sijuwade, who was reminded of being on oath, denied making such request to either the Accountant-General or Minister of Finance.
“I never at any time made any request to the AGF to return N2 billion pension fund to the corporation,” he said.
Insistent on getting to the root of the matter, the committee asked the Director of Finance, Felix Njoku, to take an oath in order to take questions regarding the issue.
Njoku did and insisted that there was never any correspondence from his office to the Accountant-General’s on return of the said money.
Not satisfied, the committee veered into what the organisation did with N2 billion that was in the corporations coffers around the period under review.
The Finance Director explained that the money was not related to pension and was used to fund ongoing contracts at the time.
He was asked to list the contracts, which he said was impossible at that point but that all transactions were duly documented.
He promised to make available the records.
The committee also faulted the award of rail contract to Costain Construction Company, claiming that it had no competence in railway projects.
Sijuwade replied that Costain went through due process and was found competent by the Federal Executive Council, adding that it successfully completed its project. [myad]

Former Political Adviser to the ex-Vice President, Namadi Sambo, Malam Abba Dabo, has told a Federal High Court in Abuja that the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh gave him the sum of N25 Million for media publicity work but that he had returned the money to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Abba Dabo, who was testifying today as the seventh prosecution witness against Metuh, said he returned the money on his own volition in January 2016 due to media publications indicating that it was sourced from funds meant for procurement of arms.

He said that the N25 million was paid to him through Metuh’s firm, Destra Investment Limited’s account, on December 16, 2014, five days after former President Goodluck Jonathan and Sambo emerged as the PDP’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the party at the party’s nomination convention.

The witness, who is a past newspapers’ editor and was the Chief Press Secretary to former President Shehu Shagari, said he decided to return the money to the EFCC because he could not reach Metuh, who was then in the custody of the anti-graft agency.

The PDP chief said: “Unfortunately, there were reports in the media, on this transaction with Chief Metuh linking it to controversial circumstances. I mean it was identified that Chief Metuh paid the N25m to my account through his company and that the source of the money was from the arms deal that was being discussed generally in the country.

“As a result of that publication, we thought we needed to explain, and because it was paid to my personal account , in my name, I decided to make a refund, and  I paid it to EFCC, because I couldn’t reach Mr. Metuh that particular time.

“The newspapers were awash with the story that linked the money given to me to the arms money that was said to have been diverted to other uses by the Office of the National Security Adviser. On my own volition, I decided that the the best way out of the rigmarole was to pay back the amount. I paid it back to EFCC.”

The EFCC is prosecuting Metuh and Destra Investments Limited, on seven counts of fraudulent collection of N400m from the Office of the National Security Adviser on November 22, 2014 and money laundering involving cash transaction to the tune of $2m.

The prosecution alleged that the N400m which Metuh got from the NSA office and used for PDP’s campaign activities was “part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity” of the immediate past NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd).

Dabo said on Thursday that with the N25m which he got from Metuh in the build-up to the 2015 presidential election, he helped to mitigate and counter negative media reports against the then Jonathan-led government and the PDP.

He said used the money to run the Media Support System which he had set up to boost the PDP’s media profile‎  in response to “vicious attacks” from Hausa radio stations and criticisms from the Nigerian media as well as the social media.

He said he also set up a team of facilitators and young Information Technology enthusiasts, who were active on the Internet to run a website, ‘What’s Up Naija’.

“From the money we received from Chief Metuh, we paid salaries and allowances of facilitators, bought equipment and computers for the young people working on What’s Up Naija.

“We even paid that year’s rent for our office at 12B Deb Street, Off Danube Street in Maitama, Abuja. We also used that office to monitor the election.”

Dabo, who described Metuh as “a loyal party man, dedicated, strong and outspoken person”, said he however, chose to refund the money to the EFCC following media reports linking the money to the botched purchase of arms.

“I decided to refund the money not only because it was from the NSA Office, but also because it was linked to the botched arms purchase deal,” Dabo said‎.

But the trial judge, Justice Okon Abang, upheld an objection raised by the defence to the admissibility of ‎documents relating to the activities of the What’s Up Naija and Media Support System as well as the tenancy agreement for the office used by the campaign platforms.

The judge rejected the documents relating to the two campaign platforms because, being computer-generated they did not meet the standard set out in Section 84(1) (a) to (c) of the Evidence Act,  and the tenancy agreement because the prosecution failed to lay proper foundation as to why it tendered the photocopy instead of the original.

Under cross-examination by the defence counsel, Mr. Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), Dabo confirmed that he considered the refund of the money “absolutely important” and that he made the refund to EFCC through three bank drafts.

“I wrote a letter to the EFCC attaching three bank drafts with a cover letter acknowledging that the Chief Olisa Metuh, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, gave N25m to me on December 16, 2014 for the purposes of publicity campaign which was paid by WhatsApp naija and Media Support System,” he said.

He said he did not mention the refund in his statement made to the EFCC on January 6, 2016 “because I needed to go to the bank the next day and make necessary arrangement”.

Fielding more questions from Ikpeazu, the witness confirmed that he was at Metuh’s home in Gudu area of Abuja on the day he was arrested while trying to find out the source of the campaign money from him.

“Up till now I have not have the chance of meeting with him,” the witness said.

He confirmed that former President Jonathan, the Federal Government and the PDP benefited “immensely” from the media works Metuh engaged him for.

Metuh attended the proceedings from home today, without handcuffs and prison officials around him. Today was his first court appearance after he met his bail conditions and was released from prison.

Decked in a black suit with a pair of eye glasses, his gray beards which were left to grow during his 13 days of detention, had been shaved clean.

Like the previous court sessions, a battery of women party faithful in PDP customised wrappers, relatives and friends, filled all available spaces in the court room.

After the court proceedings on Thursday, they surrounded and accompanied Metuh to a waiting Prado jeep which later drove him away.

Justice Abang adjourned till Monday for further trial. [myad]