The Speaker of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly, Francis Nwifuru, has denied being arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu on Friday.
Addressing newsmen on Saturday in Abakaliki, Nwifuru said he only honoured an invitation from the anti-graft agency at its South East zonal office in Enugu.
He said: “I arrived in Enugu from Abuja after attending an agricultural conference in China and decided to honour the invitation, which came to my office in my absence.
“I decided to honour the invitation to avoid the inconvenience of traveling to Abakaliki and back to Enugu.
“I decided to visit Hon. Edward Ubosi, the Speaker of Enugu Assembly, before going to the EFCC office.
“He accompanied me to the EFCC office as I didn’t know the location.”
The speaker said while there, he was asked to explain what transpired with the 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 constituency project funds as a member representing Izzi West Constituency.
He said: “I explained all I knew about the projects within a period of 30 minutes.
“It is clear that I was neither arrested nor molested by the EFCC.”
Nwifuru noted that he informed the EFCC that he was not the speaker within those periods but was aware that some funds were released for the projects by the former state governor.
He said: “The then speaker awarded contracts for the constituency projects through bidding processes.
“A member’s duty is to monitor the project execution.
“The projects for my constituency were duly constituted and executed.
“The only uncompleted one was a structure meant for the police, which, however, attained 80 per cent completion.
“The funds for the 2014 constituency projects, for instance, were only released 23 per cent.
“So there was no way a contractor could complete the project.
“The system of constituency project execution in Ebonyi is such that a succeeding tenure would not complete uncompleted projects, as the projects stop with the period of award.”
Nwifuru noted that the EFCC officials were shocked at his revelations, as he promised to sponsor their trip to Ebonyi State to assess the projects to ascertain the truth.
He said: “The petition was politically motivated.
“It only involved nine members of the previous assembly who were re-elected and who did not support the immediate past administration toward its end.
“I also informed them that the Department for Planning, Research and Statistics in the Assembly should be held accountable because it raised the certificates of completion to the contractors involved.
“When I finished my explanations, I was told to leave as they could have stipulated bail conditions if actually I was arrested.”
Nwifuru noted that the anti-graft agency revealed to him that the Assembly was porous with some agents divulging information of its activities.
He said: “The petition in my own view emanated from aggrieved staff of the Assembly who felt they were unduly transferred, that their duties were given to other departments or not carried along in the projects’ execution.
“It also does not concern the recent invitation by the present state governor to the EFFC to investigate past and present administrations as it was dated March 2015, while actual invitation was in August.
“I want to assure my constituents that there is nothing to worry about.
“I told the EFFC that efforts would be made to permanently stop further embarrassment to the state through frivolous petitions.”
NAN.
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