The last has not been heard in the N3.5 billion contracts involving Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, as she appeared for interrogation at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) office in Abuja yesterday.
Obasanjo-Bello, a senator representing Ogun Central Senatorial District, THISDAY gathered, spent the whole of yesterday answering questions bordering on the alleged N3.5 billion contracts.
A source at the EFCC said she reported at their Abuja office in the morning and left in the evening.
The source also said the EFCC operatives may ask her to report for more interrogation next week.
According to him, “Senator Obasanjo-Bello spent virtually the whole of yesterday at our office. She answered questions pertaining to an investigation we are undertaking.
“She cooperated with us throughout, as she left later in the evening. We will ask her to come back if the need arises.”
An Austrian firm, M. Schneider, had petitioned the EFCC and the Presidency over what it called the “fraudulent, corrupt and criminal nature involving Obasanjo-Bello (alias Mrs Damilola Akin-lawon), then serving as a Commissioner with the Ogun State Government”.
The Austrian company alleged that Obasanjo-Bello “fraudulently” presented herself as Mrs Damilola Akinlawon while entering into contractual agreement with it to float a company which put in bids for contracts in the power projects embarked upon by the government headed by her father.
In the petition dated 30th August 2007 and copied to other anti-corruption agencies like the ICPC, Code of Conduct Bureau and Chai-rman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, M. Schneider of Austria alleged that Obasanjo-Bello concealed her identity and presented herself as Mrs Damilola Akinlawon with the “sole consideration of shielding her father, former President of Nigeria, from being perceived as having breached relevant laws in the award of power projects indirectly to her daughter”.
The company pleaded with the anti-corruption agencies to investigate the case with a view to ascertaining whether Nigeria’s laws were broken by Obasanjo-Bello “acting either for herself or on behalf of the then President”.
Obasanjo-Bello had said she was not directly involved in the contract as Chief Awofisayo funded the entire project.
According to her, “I know Prince Awofisayo. Sometime ago, he invited me to be part of a business he wanted to do. Some of these proposals work, other times they don’t. Prince said I should not worry, that he would fund the entire project. I told him since I was a commissioner, it could raise issues of conflict of interest. We agreed to go into the business all the same. Prince formed a company and did all the ground work. We agreed that I should use a different name, yes, because in law there is nothing wrong with that. Even the arbitration panel in Paris, on which a judge of the high court of England sat, agreed that legally, there was nothing wrong in that.
“The company put in bids for the power projects without any input from me. It went through a normal, transparent process. I didn’t even know anybody at NEPA, so I could not have influenced anything. The company won the contracts. It is true that I used a pseudonym. It was Prince Awofisayo who funded the whole project. I did not put in a penny and I did not receive a penny from it.
“The truth will come out someday. This is pure blackmail. Because their business relationship has gone bad now, they now want to drag me in an unnecessary controversy. This is unfair. They are trying to use the media to destroy me because I am Obasanjo’s daughter. Does it mean because I am Obasanjo’s daughter, I cannot do anything again in this country? I have worked hard all my life. I am a PhD holder by dint of hard work. Does it mean I cannot even do anything again in my life without people trying to make a big issue out of it?”
By Bunmi Oni
This Day
Friday, December 28, 2007
