INCREDIBLE! Odili Claims He Spent N5BN on Security Every Month for 8 Years

If Dr. Peter Odili, former Governor of Rivers State is eventually brought before the court of law to answer to charges of corrupt acts and abuse of office, the revelation of sums purloined from the treasury of the State would go into the records book as new highs in stealing in high places.

Odili, a medical doctor, had voluntarily told a team of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s investigators that he spent a mindboggling N5billion on security matters in his state. Prompted to detail how this sums were deployed, the governor evasively told the investigators that he was not obligated to give details of how he spent the monthly N5billion security vote. He, however, offered that the N5billion monthly expenditure on security was undertaken because of the volatile nature of his State.

If he spent this amount for the eight years of his two terms in office as governor of the State, he would have spent N460billion on to maintain security in the State. Yet, some indigenes of the State observed that it was during Odili’s stay in power that the security situation in the State degenerated into a state of anarchy.

Another Rivers State indigene noted that the sum claimed by Odili to have been spent on security would have transformed the state into a modern day Dubai if properly expended.

Another worrisome disclosure by Odili to EFCC’s investigators was how he spent N30.31billion on the construction and installation of gas turbines as part of the State’s Independent Power Project (IPP). Justifying the money spent on the gas turbines, Odili insisted before the EFCC investigating team that the IPP produced 80 percent of power generation in Port Harcourt which translates to 3,800 Mega Watts of electricity while NEPA generated a mere 15 percent.

The statistics provided by Odili obviously seem to be far fetched especially as Port Harcourt residents continue to grumble over continuously long periods of power outage.

“If Odili had given us 50 percent of the power he claimed to be able to generate we would have bettered the whole of Nigeria in power generation because I know that the Power Holding Company of Nigeria has problems sustaining even a power generation of 2,500 Mega Watts. But we cannot see any evidence of such investment or hope of accessing such huge supply of electricity power,” said a Port Harcourt resident.

Odili, however, insisted that the contract for the construction of the gas turbines was properly bided for even as he noted that the contractor showed similar jobs done for Shell, Agip and the Federal Government of Nigeria, explaining that the contractor was the most competent in power project.

As it turned out, the contractor was Rockson Engineering, the company owned and managed by his (Odili) bosom friend and front man, Mr. Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide, who also owns controlling interest in Arik Air.

The EFCC notes observed that the elaborate electricity project was executed without the appropriate legislation by the State House of Assembly in flagrant abuse of constitutional requirements.

The Odili’s loot revelations continues next week