EFCC receives fresh petition against Akpabio

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has received a fresh petition against a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Godswill Akpabio

The petition was titled “Petition against former Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State for gross and uncommon abuse of public trust.”

Copies of the petition were also sent to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Director General of the State Security Service, Lawal Daura.

This was the third petition against the former governor who is now a member of the Senate and was recently appointed Minority Leader in the upper chamber.

In the latest petition dated August 3, 2015 and was received by the commission on August 5, 2015, the petitioner, Leo Ekpenyong, said he had discovered what he called “uncommon diversion of Akwa Ibom tax payers’ money for the acquiring of massive properties by the former governor.”

Ekpenyong, who wrote from chamber, Leo Ekpeyong and Co, said, “The properties owned by Akpabio and his surrogates are itemised as follows:

“Eleven blocks of four luxury flats, making it a total of 44 luxury flats, registered in the name of Prince Ukpong Akpabio. The location is Woji, Port-Harcourt in Rivers State.

“It is worthy of note that former Governor Akpabio owns a total of 27 estates different from the ones mentioned in our earlier petitions.

“Some of the housing estates have between 25 and 75 high rise premium units.

“These estates are located in the Lekki area(Ikate Elegushi Estate), Lekki Phase 1, near Pan African University off Chevron roundabout (Lagos State).

“Others are Banana Island in Ikoyi, Gbagada on the mainland as well as Ogunlana Drive on the mainland.”

Ekpenyong had earlier sent two petitions to the commission against the former governor.

The first was dated June 8 while the second one was dated June 22.

The petitioner told our correspondent on Wednesday that he had appeared thrice before the commission’s investigators to “adopt the petitions.”

He said on the three occasions that “I backed up the petitions with oral testimonies and explained to the investigators that I was ready to testify against the former governor.”

Spokesperson for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwajuren, told our correspondent that he did not know if the commission had received the latest petition.

He said, “Several petitions are sent to the commission on a daily basis and none of the petitions is sub-item in my office.

“Because of this, I might not know the details of the petition. That’s the situation. “

The former governor could not be reached for his reaction as of time of going to press.

Calls made to his telephone line indicated that it was switched off, while a text message sent to him was not delivered.

EFCC receives fresh petition against Akpabio