Clear yourself before probing another, HURIWA tells Matawalle
Coalition of Concerned Nigerians has urged President Bola Tinubu to suspend the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, and hand him over to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for investigation into corruption allegations against him.
The coalition made the call for probe in a petition to the President, through the Office of the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle. They said evidence had been carefully compiled and attached to the petition.
The petition was signed by human rights activists and lawyers, a copy of which was made available to The Guardian. It called for investigation into the conduct of Ogalla, who had been been accused of engaging in large-scale corrupt practices.
The petition was signed by Pelumi Olajengbesi, Deji Adeyanju, Mohammed Suleiman SK, Aisha Waliki, and Ogunwoye Samson.The coalition outlined three primary areas forming the basis of their petition against Ogalla to include: Oil theft collusion, contract splitting, procurement fraud, and corrupt practices.
BUT the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) and civil society groups, under the umbrella of the Coalition of National Civil Society Organisations (CNCSOs), have condemned the reports linking Ogalla to multibillion naira oil bunkering and contract-splitting fraud, saying it is the handiwork of a frustrated syndicate involved in stealing Nigeria’s crude oil.
In a statement jointly signed by the CNPP’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary, James Ezema, and the National Secretary of the CNCSOs, Ali Abacha, the groups described the allegations as “dead on arrival as efforts to truncate the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration’s renewed quest to mitigate the stealing of the country’s crude oil is the target of the disgruntled ring’s attack on Ogalla.”
“We strongly believe that it was based on Ogalla’s track records of service that prompted Mr. President to trust him with the appointment in the first place and he has in the last six months shown that President Tinubu did not make any mistake in his choice of the Naval Chief,” the statement read.
MEANWHILE, Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA), has asked the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, to clear his name of alleged corruption before investigating allegations against the naval chief.
While stating that the petition against the naval chief could be a calculated attempt to deny the Igbo states representation in the National Defence Council, HURIWA said: “It is only in a Banana Republic will a Bello Matawalle, accused of theft of some 50 cars from Zamfara State on leaving office and sundry allegations of heist of billions of naira of his state’s funds by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to be the one championing an investigation of any sort of allegations against any public office holder in the country.”
