Officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have secured the arrest of Imo state’s Accountant General after he was accused of helping the state governor, Rochas Okorocha to unlawfully withdraw over a billion naira to use in the governorship election.
Recall that Okorocha’s anti-party action of supporting his son-in-law, Uche Nwsou, to take over from him as the governor, forced his party, the All Progressive Congress, APC, to suspend him last week.
Uche Nwosu is contesting under the Action Alliance party. Hence, Okorocha had refused to campaign for Senator Hope Uzodinma, APC’s candidate in the state.
After the arrest of the Accountant-General, EFCC released a statement which reads, “The EFCC, Enugu Zonal Office, Thursday, March 8, 2019, arrested the Acting Accountant General of Imo State, Mr. Uzoho Casmir, on suspicion of laundering the sum of N1.050bn through a new generation bank for the governor of the state, Rochas Okorocha.
“Uzoho’s arrest followed intelligence report that the governor intended to use the money for vote buying in favor of a particular candidate in tomorrow’s gubernatorial election. Intelligence further revealed that Mr. Casmir withdrew the amount in three tranches between Tuesday and Thursday this week in the following order; N200m on Tuesday, N500m on Wednesday and N350m on Thursday.
“Meanwhile, the EFCC has blocked the traced accounts, while the arrested Accountant General has been providing useful information to the commission. Mr. Casmir was before his appointment, a Director of Finance in Okorocha’s government and was in 2016 fingered in N2bn bailout fund scam, which was then given to the state by the Federal Government for the payment of salary arrears of civil servants.”
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