The EFCC has frozen the accounts of the Benue State government as the anti-graft party accuses the state of corruption.
Governor Samuel Ortom
The plot to frustrate Governor Samuel Ortom after his daring move to defect from the All Progressives Congress, APC, to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, took a dramatic turn Tuesday following indication that the state government’s bank accounts have been frozen by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Vanguard gathered that the government accounts were frozen by the anti graft agency on the premise that the Governor’s security vote was being investigated.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission earlier linked Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State to an alleged fraud to the tune of N22bn.
This is just as the EFCC revealed that 21 members of the Benue State House of Assembly are under investigation for allegedly diverting N375m meant for the procurement of vehicles that would be used for oversight functions.
The allegations are contained in a report of an investigation which began in 2016 but was made available to a Punch correspondent on Monday.
According to the report, the governor, between June 30, 2015 and March 2018, ordered the withdrawal of N21.3bn from four government’s accounts in Guaranty Trust Bank, First Bank of Nigeria and the United Bank for Africa.
On paper, about N19bn out of the money was said to be meant for the payment of six security agencies that had been deployed in the state to address the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers.
However, the EFCC stated that less than N3bn of the money was paid to the security agencies while the remainder could not be accounted for.
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