Drama in Senate over petition against Amaechi

 Mild drama ensued on the floor of the Senate yesterday when a petition against the former Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, was to be tabled on behalf of a group from the state by Senator George Sekibo (PDP Rivers East).

 Sekibo had, in line with Senate tradition, raised order 41 of the Senate standing rules to make presentation of a petition from some of his constituents.

 But the moment he mentioned that the petition written by a group called ‘The Integrity Group from Rivers State’ was against Rotimi Ameachi, one of the ministerial nominees to be screened by the Senate next Tuesday, the APC senators spontaneously shouted him down, saying, ‘No!’, ‘No!’, ‘Dead on arrival!’ etc, with their PDP counterparts, firing back by shouting, ‘Allow him!,’ ‘allow him!’

The fireworks between Senators across party divide over the petition continued when the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, asked Sekibo whether issues raised in the petition against Amaechi are being litigated upon in the court or not, to which the APC senators replied: ‘Yes’, while the PDP senators shouted ‘No!’

 Upon which he asked Sekibo to lay the petition before the Senate and thereafter, it was forwarded to the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition to look into it critically and report back to the Senate.

 The Integrity Group, in the voluminous petition signed by one Livingstone Wechie, requested the Senate to reject the nomination of Rotimi Amaechi as a minister on the grounds of alleged corruption, criminal breach of trust, unlawful enrichment and conversion of over N70billion ‘Rivers people’s money’ when he served as governor of the state between 2007 and 2015.

 According to the Group, details of the N70billion allegedly stolen by Amaechi as governor of the state, have already been forwarded to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and other related offences ( ICPC) for the needed investigation and prosecution.

 The group added that all efforts made so far to recover or get Amaechi to account for or explain to Rivers people, the whereabouts of the over N70 billion allegedly embezzled by him have been resisted with impunity.

 They further said their move against Amaechi is without prejudice and any form of political motivation as being alluded to by mischief makers, saying,” We shall not relent and we will stop at nothing to support the Senate and the National Assembly in the fight against corruption, particularly in ensuring that anyone, no matter how highly placed, is brought to justice.

 “Our evidence and facts against Amaechi on afore-stated allegations remain incontrovertible.”

 The division among senators across party divide over the petition even continued after plenary session as many of the APC senators dismissed it with a wave of the hand with assurances that Amaechi’s nomination as minister will scale through while their counterparts in the PDP said the petition was strong enough to stop him.

 In his own comment on the petition after the plenary, Senator Sekibo noted that the petition did not emanate from the senators representing Rivers but from a non-governmental organization, the Integrity Group, which, he said, was in full support of President Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade.

 He further said the group was concerned about the nomination of Amaechi who, he pointed out, has some corruption charges pending with some anti-corruption agencies.

 The politician argued that, since the Integrity Group had sent their petition against Amaechi to Buhari, the President ought to have waited for the outcome of the case before appointing him to any public office, stating that if confirmed as minister, his position would frustrate the pending investigation against him.

 He noted that the group went into research and discovered that the former governor was involved in some fraudulent activities involving transactions of money in hard currency to foreign accounts when he was governor.

 The legislator said Amaechi has the intellectual capacity and requisite academic qualifications to be a minister of the Federal Republic but the issue of morality and integrity transcends such considerations, and must not be overlooked in the appointment of people into public offices.

 He said, “There is the group that is called the Integrity Group and they believe in transparency and fight against corruption; they believe in good governance and effective utilisation of every fund that is allocated to any state government. They are based in Port Harcourt.

 “They went into a research and discovered that over N70billion were transferred from hard currency account to places outside the country. And a petition on this note was written to Mr President. I believe the President has not read it. If he has read it, he may not hurriedly nominate Rotimi Amaechi to be a minister.

 “Amaechi is qualified to be a minister but when issues of corruption and fraud are openly x-rayed by people, it is necessary for Mr President to take a critical look and examine the allegations from these people whether they are true or not.

 “Mr President is preaching about corruption; we applaud him for the corruption fight he is waging against whoever. So, if you are fighting against corruption, then there must not be any sacred cow. No matter how close a person is to you, if there are allegations about him, you must spend time to critically look at them whether there are truths about the allegations that have been so submitted.

 “I am informed that this petition was forwarded to EFCC a month or two ago, and I am also informed that the EFCC is also commencing to carry out investigation. So, why not allow this period to go over and allow them to do their investigation and come out with the result?

 It may be mere allegation, but assuming they are true, now as a serving minister with a very big portfolio and EFCC is investigating you, can they get the result of what they are looking for? They will not get it.

 The legislator said there were many Rivers people without any indictment from anybody, who are not facing allegations of corruption, who are qualified to be appointed as minister, wondering why the President appeared to be in haste to nominate Amaechi.

 “We are not stopping Mr President from appointing a Rivers man to be a minister; we will welcome it. There are many APC members who were not indicted or accused of such similar issues. So, we have not seen the haste in pushing Amaechi to be a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

 Sekibo observed with dismay that the Rivers State Government had set up a Panel of inquiry to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the sale of government properties but Amaechi refused to honour the invitation of the panel, saying that such refusal was an indication that the accused was culpable.

 He said that, since President Buhari did not give attention to the petition sent to him on Amaechi by the Integrity Group, the Senators, representing the state were optimistic that the petition brought to the Senate would draw the attention of the President to the matter.

 “On the other hand, the Rivers State Government set up a judicial panel of inquiry to investigate the sales of state government-owned properties. Former Governor Amaechi refused to appear to defend himself. Now, what does it mean? If you are accused of something and then you refused to appear, it means you know something about it.

 “Maybe the letters that were sent to the Presidency were not delivered. We are sure that through this process, he would be able to hear some of the allegations in the petition and perhaps, have a rethink.

 “The Rivers people will be very happy. We are not victimizing anybody. We will not victimize any other nominee from Rivers State apart from Amaechi, who had been so indicted, and by this tag on him, he should not be presented. The people of the state are crying and it’s like there is no help from anywhere. It should not be so. I presented the petition on behalf of the senators from Rivers State.

 “Also included with the petition to the president was a documentary of how proceeds from Rivers State Government-owned accounts were disbursed from one source to another. The Integrity Group had gone a step further by publishing the contents of the petition in some national dailies.

 “As a state, if our funds are mismanaged, it’s our duty to recover those funds and bring them back to the coffers. If the President finds out that a minister had mismanaged funds domiciled under his ministry, and then, he is being called to account for the money but refused to come, what will happen?

 “Perhaps the President has higher powers, the minister could be arrested. It is not the case with a former governor. Some people will see it as a case of witch-hunt. So, the only one who can intervene in the matter is the President and perhaps, the anti fraud related agencies,” he said. 

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