Rivers Rerun: Nigeria Police recovers N111 million from 23 ‘corrupt’ INEC officials

*Wike denies allegation despites audio proof he compromised INEC officials

*IGP to forward report, recommendation on Rivers electoral violence AGF

*Wike refused to cooperate with panel despite team visit to him in PH – IGP

*Vows the investigation will end electoral malpractices in Nigeria

*African CSOs want illicit financial flow beneficiaries exposed

By Kemi Kasumu with Agencies reports

The panel constituted to investigate the electoral and other offences perpetrated during the December 10 Rivers Parliamentary re-run election has said that it recovered N111 million from 23 INEC officials.

The Chairman of the panel, Damian Okoro, made the allegation while presenting the team’s report to the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, in Abuja on Tuesday.

He alleged that three senior electoral officers collected N20 million each out of the N360 million given to them by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers, while the remaining officers received N15 million each.

Mr. Wike has denied any wrongdoing despite an audio showing he may have compromised some INEC officials financially. The Rivers Governor also accused the police of bias and refused to cooperate or allow state officials cooperate with the police investigation team.

Mr. Okoro, a deputy commissioner of police, further alleged that there were some cases of misconduct on the part of some electoral officers, who were compromised in the line of duty.

“By this investigation, this panel has diligently unravelled what went wrong with the re-run election in Rivers, the details of which are contained in the report.

“We discovered that failure of leadership and followership rather than law enforcement was responsible for the political upheaval in the state,” he said.

The DEFENDER reported that Governor Wike had last week sought an Abuja High Court to stop the Inspector-General of Police’s investigation of the Rivers rerun elections which was characterised by violence leading to the death of a yet to be confirmed number of people.  What was clear was that during the violence, DSP Mohammed Alkali was beheaded and his orderly killed. Security officials have also been accused of complicity for their roles in the electoral violence.  What shocked many was that on the day DSP Alkali was being buried in Niger State, Governor Nyesom Wike was seen apparently leading a protest rally in Port Harcourt against the Nigerian Police audio proof on which he threatened to kill any police officer who tried to block his way during the polls.

The investigative panel chairman, Mr. Okoro, added that the task given to the panel was challenging because of the tense political and security atmosphere in the state.

He said lawless elements targeted political opponents of their sponsors, and law enforcement agents, especially the police.

He attributed some of the violent acts to inflammatory statements by some narrow-minded politicians.

“Apart from their utterances, politicians in their desperation for power, also armed thugs who unleashed terror on their opponents,” he said.

He said that six police officers, who were indicted, had been tried and dismissed from the force.

Responding, the Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris said that a report and recommendation would be forwarded to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for his advice.

He said appropriate action would be taken against indicted persons to serve as deterrent.

“We are going to take appropriate action in conjunction with other security agencies to put an end to this problem,’’ he said.

He urged Nigerians to have confidence in the security agencies and believe the panel report.

Mr. Idris alleged that Wike refused to cooperate with the panel even when the team visited him in Port Harcourt.

He said that the investigation would go a long way toward ending electoral malpractices in the country.

“We will be failing in this country if we allow this to continue,” he said.

He said that the money recovered would be paid into government coffers.

It will be recalled that the IGP on December 22, 2016, constituted a 15-man special joint investigation panel to investigate electoral and other offences in respect of the Dec. 10, 2016 re-run election in Rivers.

The membership comprised 12 police officers and three officials of the Department of State Services.

The panel was, among other things, mandated to thoroughly investigate the various infractions, incidents and violence that marred the election.

…Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria CSOs want illicit financial flow beneficiaries exposed

Representatives of government agencies, civil societies, private sector and media from Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria have urged African governments start naming beneficiaries of illicit financial flows from the continent to stem the tide.

This is contained in a communiqué of a two-day workshop on “Supporting New Beneficial Ownership Transparency Champions in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria”.

The workshop was convened in Accra by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Transparency International (TI) Secretariat, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Nigeria and Transparency International (Kenya) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

Participant were joined by ten other international experts who shared their expertise on relevant issues like beneficial ownership registers, extractives, open data, open contracting and procurement, tax and illicit financial flows.

Opened officially by the Vice President of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the workshop was held within the framework of a Transparency International project aimed at supporting the realization of commitments made by the governments of Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria at the UK Anti-Corruption Summit in May 2016 on establishing public beneficial ownership registers.

“Participants discussed the extent of the challenges posed to Africa by non-disclosure of beneficial ownership information of companies and heard that; Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and different parts of the world are making efforts towards establishing a legal system that collects and publishes crucial corporate information,” the communique jointly signed by Linda Ofori-Kwafo GII, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani CISLAC/TI Nigeria and Elizabeth Munyefu TI Kenya said.

It was resolved that entities doing business (including financial institutions, Real Estate Developers and Professional Bodies) commit to an increased transparency and business integrity by unveiling their Beneficial Owners.

It urged African countries to strengthen the capacity of their institutions, particularly financial institutions, revenue authorities and other public sector organizations responsible for the different levels of negotiations in the extractive sector and in public procurement to ensure there are clear plans to manage corruption, tax avoidance, tax evasion and other financial abuse risks.

“Having collected the Beneficial Ownership Information, make the information available and easily accessible to citizens of our respective countries in an open data format while ensuring the security and safety of beneficial owners are not compromised,” it said.

It urged the African Union Commission to speedily develop a road map for the implementation of the recommendations of the High Level panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) from Africa.