Paris Club Refund: NGO To EFCC: Commence Probe Of State Govs Now; As Delta Govt, Allegedly ‘Diverted’ N3bn

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has been call upon to immediately set up machinery to investigate alleged ‘diversion’ of billions of naira by state governments from the Paris Club Refund released to them by the Federal Government.

National Coordinator of non-governmental organization, Centre for Peace and Environmental Justice, CEPEJ, Comrade Sheriff Mulade, made this call on Thursday during an interview session with members of NUJ Warri Correspondents Chapel, in Warri, Delta state.

He said, specifically, that the Delta State Government is the number one culprit of the alleged ‘diversion’ of the funds.

This is coming barely few days after President Muhammadu Buhari while meeting with members of the National Council of Traditional Rulers at the new Banquet hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, frowned at the inability of some state governments to pay the retirement benefits and outstanding salaries of workers with the payment of the refund

BigPen Online recalls that President Buhari had, specifically, lamented that he is “living with the problems of this country day-by-day, and mostly those of the ordinary people”, ostensibly because of the alleged diversion of the funds released to cushion the effects of hardship and other teething challenges confronting the country.

Mulade, said that it was time for the EFCC to beam their searchlight on the 36 state government over the alleged misappropriation of the Paris Club Refund which some state governors reportedly diverted.

He said that the Governors were reportedly diverting monies released for a specific purpose because they want to impose themselves on the people in 2019 by any mean possible.

Specifically, he claimed that a part of the second tranche of the Paris Club Refund was allegedly diverted by the Delta State Government running into about N3billion naira for unfathomed reasons.

The activist claimed that the money was reportedly kept in an escrow account for the purpose of using same to prosecute the reelection of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state.

Apart from the Paris Club Refund money of which the anti-graft agency is being call upon to investigate, Mulade said that the Okowa-led administration need to account for the use of the 13 percent derivation funds in which 50 percent ought to wholly accrued to the State oil commission, christened, DESOPADEC.

While saying that the call was for the interest of the good people of the state, particularly the oil producing communities, Mulade asserted that since Okowa’s administration, DESOPADEC which use to be an interventionist agency has become a lame duck with abandoned projects dotting the communities.

While however expressing concern about the way and manners the EFCC had conducted its investigation this period, apparently “selective” , Mulade urged the anti-graft agency to immediately move to states affected by the alleged diversion of the Paris Club refund money.

“The EFCC had kept mute in some of the issues we have raised, especially on the issues of the diversion of the Paris Funds Refund. Some of these funds have been diverted in Delta State and the state government had not been able to come out openly to debunk it to a reasonable level to calm the people’s minds.

“We have information that about 3 billion naira of the Paris Club refund had been diverted to a secret account for the 2019 election.

“EFCC has not been able to go to some of these states to find out if these allegations are true or not. If they have not being doing selective investigation and looking for only opposition party, they would have done better than this. but as it is right now it is only those who are not in Good terms with the Federal government that they are going after.

“So rather than fighting only some few Senators, and opposition party members, they should also visit the 36 states and investigate them.

“In Delta State, I am not happy with EFCC because Okowa has not been able to tell us what he is doing or had done with our 13 percent derivation funds.

“50 percent of this fund is supposed to be given to DESOPADEC. But today, as I’m talking to you, DESOPADEC had not done any project since 2015. All the projects carried out by DESOPADEC since 2015 are all abandoned projects right now. Today there is no single project in DESOPADEC.

“The State governor has not been able to tell us how he has used the 50 percent that is going to DESOPADEC”.

“So we are using this medium to call on the EFCC to call on Governor Okowa to explained to us what he has done with our money.

“Most of our communities are suffering right now. We are heading into the last lap of the administration and there is no single project in all the oil producing communities. Unfortunately, most of the projects are awarded on paper, executed on paper and commissioned on paper”, he lamented.

Mulade also spoke about the faceoff between the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB and the Nigerian Army, saying it was uncalled for and unconstitutional and unacceptable for the military to invade people’s homes unprovoked under the guise of “Operation Python Dance”

He opined that the call by pro-secessionist groups in the country was as a result of the leadership failure adding that if the ongoing onslaught in the Southeast is not well handle it would spill doom for the country.

“It is the Federal Government that birthed the agitations in the Southeast including the Niger Delta crisis and I must say if this issue in the Southeast is not well handled Nigeria will become history

On the way forward, he urged the Federal Government and military authority to adopt peaceful means, suggestively, the traditional method of conflict resolution in coming out of the logjam.

“The government should be careful and adopt peaceful means in resolving this issue. Nigerians are not happy and they are also nolonger patriotic. Nigeria is degenerating into ethnic and regional divide. The government cannot sit in one place and give order to arrest people and kill them. They are not rats. You cannot go and surround Kanu houses.

“The government should also used the traditional institution because using political means in solving these issues may degenerate to another level. Sometimes if we adopt political ways to solve these problems a lot of things may go out of hand. Before independence we have our traditional ways of solving these issues and I think we should go back to those methods”, he added.

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