Senator Rochas Okorocha has reacted to a N106 billion fraud indictment by Justice Benjamin Iheaka-led panel probing contracts awarded during his eight years tenure.
Bibian Anekwe News reports that the Justice Iheaka-led panel, set up by Governor Hope Uzodinma, had demanded that the former governor refund the monies which it claimed was fraudulently expended on fictitious contracts.
Reacting in a statement by his spokesperson, Sam Onwuemeodo, Okorocha described Uzodinma as a man weighed down by credibility crisis.
He accused Uzodimma of being complicit in the spending of about N119billion of federation account fund meant for the state.
“In his independence day speech the governor said that he inherited systematic fraudulent system from Ihedioha,” Okorocha said.
“Two days after, he said that Okorocha should refund N106 billion. We challenge the government in Imo, led by Senator Hope Uzodinma to publish the Iheaka report verbatim so that Imo people in particular and Nigerians in general, could read the report and see how the panel arrived at N106 billion, which they said that Senator Okorocha should refund.”
The former Imo governor expressed disappointment with the chairman of the panel.
He wondered why a judge would go-ahead to submit a report on a matter that was pending at a Federal High Court in which the presiding judge had ordered for the maintenance of the status quo.
“No serious panel would have made such recommendation. It could only take a ‘Ben Johnson’ panel to do that. And let the government publish the list of contractors who handled contracts under Okorocha, state the contracts they did, how much they were paid respectively, how they were paid and what they should have been paid, in the estimation of the panel members,” Okorocha added.
