Court Remands INEC Staff in Prison over N111.5m Scam

Paul Obi in Abuja

Justice P. I. Ajaku of the Federal High Court sitting in Benin-City, Edo State on Thursday ordered that the duo of Uluocha Obi Brown, an Administrative  Secretary of the  Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Delta State and Percy Okojie, a legal practitioner, be remanded in prison custody, following their arraignment before the court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on an eight-count amended charge, bordering on conspiracy and money laundering to the tune of N111,500,000.

According to the EFCC Head of Media and Information, Wilson Uwujaren, “The defendants were arraigned for allegedly collecting the sum of N111,500,000.00k (One Hundred and Eleven Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira only), as a bribe during the weeks leading to the 2015 presidential election.

“They are among the over 100 INEC officials that allegedly collected part of the $115 million (N23bn) disbursed by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, during the countdown to the 2015 presidential election.

“Brown was arrested sometime in 2016,  following an intelligence received by the EFCC on the activities of some INEC Staff, who allegedly connived with the West African Network of Election Observers (WANEO) a non-governmental organisation (NGO), in defrauding the federal government huge sums of money, running into billions of naira during the 2015 general election.”

Details later…