Okiro Quizzed Over Alleged N275.5 Million Fraud

Fri, Jun 5, 2015

By publisher

2 MIN READ

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MIKE Okiro, former inspector general of police and current chairman, Police Service Commission, PSC, was a guest of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, on Thursday, June 4, where he was quizzed for more than six hours over alleged mismanagement of N275, 525,000 million to train staff of the PSC to monitor the conduct of policemen during the general elections.

Okiro was interrogated with five others between 10:00 and 4:00pm, was not detained, but granted an administrative bail.

The N275.5million was said to be extra-budgetary allocation, but its source has been kept secret. The vote was said to have been beyond the N151, 739, 280 approved by the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP.

The BPP also described the application for approval by the PSC as a deliberate attempt to circumvent due process.

The former IGP was ushered into the anti-graft commission’s headquarters in Abuja, with some top officials of the PSC including Bisala A. A., chief accountant, Ibeh E. C, director of administration and Finance, as well as George Todonu, his police orderly, at about 9:50 am. They were later joined by other PSC officials such as Bello B. and Raymond Imiobo at about 11.20am.

A senior official of the ICPC said: “Okiro and some officials of ICPC were invited for interrogation. They made some useful statements. They will still appear before our investigators because investigations are still ongoing.”

The row over the management of the funds reportedly led Aaron Kaase, a principal administrative Staff, to write a petition to the ICPC and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

Although Kaase’s petition is dated May 21, 2015, the PSC suspended him from service on May 27, and backdated the letter of suspension to the same day he blew the whistle on the fraud.

— Jun 15, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT

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