By Soni Daniel, Emma Ovuakporie &Peter Okutu
ABAKALIKI—Ebonyi State government yesterday raised alarm that some prominent natives of the state holding key positions in Abuja were using security agencies to persecute its officials, with a view to bringing down the administration for political reasons.
The state government cited the arrest and detention of three of its officials by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Abuja under the guise of investigating them for abuse of office without any evidence to back up their claims.
Those said to have been held by the EFCC are: the state Accountant-General, Mr. Edwin Igbele, Finance Commissioner, Barr. Timothy Odaah and the Commissioner for Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr. Celestine Nwali.
Addressing a news conference in Abuja yesterday, the Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Edwin Igbele, and his Information counterpart, accused some few privileged citizens of the state in the corridors of power in Abuja and those fighting to win election, even after being rejected by the electorate, of being behind the persecution of the state officials.
The two commissioners said that anarchy was imminent in the state, as the Abuja-based politicians from Ebonyi were bent on bringing the state to a standstill for their selfish political reasons.
They maintained that it was in a bid to achieve their set goal of destabilising the state that the masterminds were writing frivolous and baseless petitions against the three men being detained by the EFCC in Abuja.
They said that apart from the petition to the EFCC and the ICPC, the same group had also filed a suit at a Lagos High Court to stop the state from securing a N15 billion bond from the Stock Exchange to complete development projects.
The two men said: “One of the allegations against the commissioners is that some Local Government funds which were legitimately spent in 2012 and 2013 were unlawfully spent. These are all lies because the documents are there to speak for themselves.
“Even without hearing from the three officers, the Joint Account of the 13 Local Governments was frozen by EFCC contrary to section 34(1) of EFCC Act 2004. The Joint Account of Local Governments was frozen when there was no evidence of the money being proceeds of corruption.”
Explaining the genesis of the political crisis in the state, the two commissioners said PDP in the state had lost the majority of its key members to the Labour Party because of its fraudulent primaries held in the state last December.
They said the state government officials wanted to prove to the PDP that it was the people that make the party and not the other way round and to teach them a lesson for insulting Governor Martins Elechi.
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