The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has launched a massive investigation into alleged misappropriation of about N67 billion local government funds in Abia State over the years.
The anti-graft agency has in the course of the investigation invited the state Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Chief Emmanuel Nwabuko, and the first son of the governor, Mr. Chinedu Orji, alias Ikuku for interrogation.
Both men, it was alleged, were behind the monumental sleaze in the management of the funds over the years, which has left the third tier of government in the state in dire straits. The local governments have been run by unelected caretaker committees for years on end. In the last elections, just before the re-run governorship poll, four local government chairmen who were accused by the governor of not delivering their local governments to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were summarily dismissed on the orders of the governor, but apparently at the instance of Chinedu, his son.
Sunday Sun learnt that federal allocations meant for the local governments in the state were hijacked through their connivance, leaving only a meager sum for workers' wages only.
The commissioner is yet to honour the EFCC invitation and the agency has spread its dragnet within and outside the state to track him down.
Already, the commissioner's wife who was also invited when he failed to show up at the EFCC office honoured the invitation, was quizzed by officials and allowed to go. An EFCC source confirmed the development, adding that the governor's son had yet to report at the commission. The source did not, however, disclose its next line of action should the governor's son and the commissioner fail to honour the invitation within the expressed time frame. Chinedu, the governor's son is reputed as the governor's man-Friday and the power behind his government. He has variously been linked with many controversial issues, terror and fangs-baring in the state. He is said to move around with heavy military escort and thugs in Hilux vans, spreading fear and awe all around.
Sunday Sun further learnt that in January this year, when the allocation from the federation account arrived in the state, Chinedu upstaged his father's plan to use it to offset the huge backlog of workers' salaries, and instead deployed it for election purposes. Chinedu, who was unemployed before his father assumed power in the state as governor, became the de-facto helmsman, dreaded by many in the state. During the PDP screening exercise late last year, he was accused of being a cultist, but was later cleared to run for a seat in the state House of Assembly for Umuahia Central Constituency.
Although the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC declared him the winner of the elections under controversial circumstances, many of his opponents in the election are on the run at the moment in mortal fear for their lives.