Osinbajo: Stop Covering Up Misdeeds, ICPC Tells Obono-Obla

The Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Bolaji Owasanoye, has asked Okoi Obono-Obla, the former Chairman of the SPIP, to stopping weaving religious, ethnicity and partisanship sentiments.

Naija News reports that SPIP stands for the Special Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property Property (SPIP).

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had in August suspended Obono-Obla, who was also his Special Assistant on Prosecution after the ICPC indicted him for certificate forgery and other corruption-related allegations.

Following his suspension, Obono-Obla accused the office of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo of persecuting him due to his loyalty to Buhari.

Obono-Obla in a letter to the president said that some principal members of the vice-president’s office, asked him to compromise an investigation but he refused.

He further noted that they are persecuting him because he chose to be loyal to the president.

“My travails started with my appointment as Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property in July 2017!” the letter read.

He said the Panel was established during the time Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was Acting President.

Obono-Obla said Osinbajo appointed one of his Special Assistants, Adeniran Gbolahan as Secretary while explaining that he later had a bitter disagreement on whether the panel has to seek mandates from the Vice President before it begins any of its investigations.

Reacting to the letter while speaking on Thursday at a Special Town Hall Meeting on Fight Against Corruption, Owasanoye said that it is a “shenanigan’’ to cover up for the allegations made against the former SPIP chairman.

He said: “The strongest defense for an accused person is to come out and say I did not do it.

“Any other defence is a shenanigan.”

He said that such allegation was common among political exposed accused persons who liked to weave religious, ethnicity and partisanship sentiment to over up for their misdeeds.