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| Ms Onyeka-Onwenu |
The allegation was leveled against the "Elegant Stallion" who is the current Executive Director/chief executive officer of the National
Centre for Women Development by one Joseph Nwakama, an architect/Contractor with Solidmark Associates Limited, the company employed by the Centre to carry out the renovation of its guest house.
However, although it was established by investigators from the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, that Mr. Abazu indeed demanded and received a total of N17 million bribe from the contractor, no direct evidence has so far linked Ms. Onwenu to the offence.
So, it was Mr. Abazu who was on July 10 arraigned before a Federal Capital Territory High Court on a six-count charge of bribery and gratification.
The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges but
was denied bail and ordered remanded in the Federal Prisons, Kuje, until the case is dispensed with.
The presiding judge, Justice Chukwu Ndukwe, adjourned the case till September 28 for trial to commence.
Although investigators could not directly link Ms.
Onwenu to bribe-taking, Premium Times reports;
documents obtained by the icirnigeria.org revealed so many wrongdoings by the Centre’s management under her watch, including funding the Solidmark contract with money taken from a Women Empowerment Programme in Zamfara State and spending more than was budgeted for the project. That is apart from paying the contractor even before he was officially awarded the contract.
Two days after submitting the bid, he was awarded the contract and asked to immediately move to site,
despite the non-issuance of an award letter.
“After two days he called me and told me that the Centre would like me to do the job because my bill was the lowest, and that I should come and see the DG,” Mr. Nwakama said in his statement.
“When I came, the DG asked me to start work, that I should work day and night (and) that they would give me award letter, agreement and advance latter,” the contractor stated.The contract, according to the letter, was awarded on April 28, 2014 at the sum of N33 million for 25 rooms, but Premium Times investigation confirmed that Solidmark started work earlier that month, long
before the formal award letter was issued.
According to bank records, by April 28, when the contract was supposedly awarded, a total of N28, 619, 047.62 had been paid into Solidmark’s Zenith Bank account (April 11, N22, 619, 047.62; April 14, N4 million, and; April 24, N2 million).
The first payment was made through a transfer by the Centre while the other two were through a First City Monument Bank, FCMB, account belonging to a company Transtell Ventures Nigeria Limited. It was discovered that the managing director and sole signatory to Transtell account is Mr. Abazu, Ms. Onwenu’s personal assistant and deputy director at the Centre.
Mr. Nwakama claimed that immediately the first payment was made, he was called by Mr. Abazu to his office, where he was told that Ms. Onwenu needed N23 million as gratification from the total money he would be paid to renovate 55 rooms, even though the contract letter stated 25 rooms.
“He told me that the DG wanted me to give them N23
million out of the money for the 55 rooms. I told him that it was too much (but) he told me that if I was not going to give them, the DG would ask me to pay back the money (N22, 619, 047.62) and the other contractor would do the job,” Mr. Nwakama explained, adding that he told the PA that he had done much work already.Investigations show that on April 15, 2014, four days after Solidmark received the first payment, the sum of N10 million was debited from its account and paid into Transtell’s FCMB account – 0418352015.
“I had to accept, he then asked me to pay N10 million into his company account, Transtell Ventures Nigeria Limited, with FCMB and I did. He told me that why the DG needed the N10 million was so she could give the First Lady (former First Lady Patience Jonathan),” the contractor said in his statement.
Again, on April 14, 2014, when N4 million was paid into Solidmark’s account by Sadeeq Omar, the Centre’s director of planning, research and statistics, Mr. Abazu called Nwakama and asked him to pay the money into Transtell’s account because the DG needed it, having given the first N10 million to the first lady.
Two days later, April 16, N4 million was paid from
Solidmark’s account into Transtell’s FCMB account. According to Nwakama, Abazu told him not to worry as the DG would soon direct that more money be paid into his account.
When N3 million was paid on August 21, 2014 into Solidmark’s account by the Centre through Fidelity Bank, Mr. Abazu allegedly demanded that the money be paid into his personal account with United Bank for Africa, UBA, for onward delivery to Ms. Onwenu.
As demanded, a day later, the N3 million was credited into Mr. Abazu’s personal account with UBA account
from Solidmark, bringing the total amount of money
paid by Solidmark to the personal assistant to N17 million.
According to Mr. Omar, the Centre’s director of planning, who paid N4 million into Solidmark’s account on April 14, 2014, the money was taken as a “loan” from the money budgeted for the Women Empowerment Programme in Zamfara West Senatorial Zone, Zamfara State.
The money’s withdrawal, Mr. Omar said, was approved by management but had not been
refunded, as at January 26, 2015.
Investigations by the icirnigeria.org revealed that N15 million was budgeted for the Zamfara empowerment programme in the 2014 budget while renovation of the guest house was allocated N30 million.
Despite this, the Centre still took out of the money meant for empowering women to renovate its guest house.
In all, bank documents show that Solidmark was paid
a total N50, 129, 047.62 for renovation jobs at the
Centre. Curiously, however, after paying out all that money, the contract was summarily terminated without notice, without the contractor completing the job.
Read the Full Report on Premium Times
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