March 18, 2022
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested immediate past Governor of Anambra, Willie Obiano, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos on his way to Houston, Texas around 8.30 pm Thursday.
Security sources told our reporter that the EFCC had been investigation the former while he was in office over allegations of billions of naira allegedly diverted to personal accounts from the state coffers.
But for the immunity which all serving governors and their deputies enjoy, Obiano would have been nabbed as far back as last year for what a source described as unethical financial dealings which did not conform with basic accounting principles and which run contrary to public sector fiscal management manuals.
Recall that the EFCC had in November 2021 placed Obiano on its watchlist, a euphemism for someone already investigated and found culpable hence needed to be invited to clear some grey areas.
Obiano’s trouble, a source in his now defunct cabinet said, started when some politicians and aggrieved contractors wrote petitions against Obiano over certain issues that made the round in the state especially last year.
“The issues which were rumour at that time include allegations of contract padding, payment of contracts not executed, inexplicable movement of huge sums of money into private accounts.
Obiano’s problem may have crystalized in November 2021 when the EFCC wrote to the Nigeria Immigration Service to convey its placement of Obiano on the watchlist and to prevent him from travelling out of any of the nation’s airports or exit points.
The commission in a November 15, 2021 letter to the Comptroller-General of the NIS, requested the Service to place the governor on watch list and inform it anytime he is travelling out of the country from any of the international airports and other points of entry and exit.
Obiano who had been governor of Anambra for eight years handed over to Charles Soludo of his party, APGA, at a brief but ugly ceremony in Awka Thursday morning. The event was marred by the unruly behaviour of his wife, Ebelechukwu Osodieme Obiano when she engaged in a physical fight with Bianca Ojukwu, the widow of the late Odumegwu Ojukwu in the full glare of guests at the Soludo inauguration ceremony.
