Akwa Ibom State: $3.1 million “Etuk money” spills bad blood within government

The report of the $3.1 million money laundering involving the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, has created sharp division and suspicion within the state cabinet. Mrs. Emem Etuk, a Deputy General Manager, Victoria Island Branch (3) of Platinum Habib Bank (BankPHB) was arrested on 11 November 2009 by security operatives at the General Aviation Terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos with $3.1 million suspected to belong to the Akwa Ibom State Governor.

Mrs. Etuk’s inability to offer a plausible explanation as to how she came about such a huge amount, or her mission, led to the escalation of the case to the Police Force headquarters in Abuja after she had been detained in Lagos for two weeks.

Details of the financial scandal were unknown until SaharaReporters’ revelation earlier this week. Following our exposé, the governor’s agent, one "Centre for Media and Development" has issued a statement defending the governor and dismissing the link between the scam and the governor. Assuming the role of the police and the court, the Magnus Eze-led group submitted that their own investigations had exonerated the governor and that the money was meant for 2009 hajj pilgrims.

SaharaReporters can reveal however that whereas the airlift of pilgrims started on 25 October, by 11 November when Mrs. Etuk was arrested, most pilgrims had departed and all travel plans had been concluded.

Sources in Government House, Uyo, revealed that the Governor, who became disturbed about how the matter broke in the media after he had successfully suppressed the incident for four weeks following its occurrence, has ordered a secret investigation to unravel those who leaked the information to the press.

According to the sources, the feeling in government circles is that someone within the governor’s inner circle might have leaked the $3.1 million deal. The state commissioner for works and transport, Mr. Don Etim, told newsmen on Wednesday that the governor was innocent and that the report linking him to the scam was the handiwork of his political opponents.

The commissioner failed to explain the relationship between Mrs. Etuk and the governor. He also did not deny the fact of huge lodgments by the state in the bank, with Mrs. Etuk as the account officer.

Despite the public outcry and call for immediate investigation by anti-graft agencies, the spokesman for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Femi Babafemi, said the matter was a police affair and the EFCC would not ‘meddle’ in it. It would be recalled that Akpabio bought a Mercedes Benz GL 450 for the EFCC chairperson, Mrs. Farida Waziri, a deal that was reported by Saharareporters.

The police, on the other hand, have refused to make any public statement on the incident. Efforts to get the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu, were futile, as he would neither answer his calls nor respond to text messages.

But BankPHB has confirmed the arrest and the huge sum involved. They insist, however, that Mrs. Etuk was acting in an official capacity, without addressing the earlier report that, the day prior to the arrest, the bank had transferred funds meant to Abuja through properly-designated persons and with appropriate authorisation.

BankPHB also claims to have given relevant documents to the police to secure Mrs. Etuk’s release and the recovery of the money. But security operatives at the airport insist that such documents should have accompanied Mrs. Etuk at the time of her arrest, and that the documents being referred to by the bank must be an afterthought in its cover-up efforts.

A top manager in the bank, who wished not to be named, said that the all-out damage-control action of the bank was to save it from the big hammer of the Sanusi Lamido-led Central Bank of Nigeria and from an expensive image crisis.

The bank management also fears that the governor might move the state’s profitable account and lodgments elsewhere, which would be a death blow at this time of low deposits and financial meltdown.

A source in Government House, Uyo, who pleaded not to be named, said that the arrest of Mrs. Etuk was a grand plot by those opposed to the governor’s ‘mismanagement’ to bring his activities into the public domain. He claimed preliminary investigations by Government House showed that the airport security officials were tipped off.

“It is not the first time an agent will be doing this deal for politicians and not just our governor, but this is a plot by insiders and we shall get to the root,” he said. He denied knowledge of likely complicity of Mrs. Etuk’s husband who is the governor’s Special Assistant on Utilities.

Mr. Etuk was also reported to have distanced himself from the report, insisting that he could not have done what would cost him and his wife their jobs. But it was suspected that he might innocently have mentioned the fund transfer arrangement to some of the governor’s confidants in order to entrench himself within the inner circle of the cabinet.

The source noted that some members of the kitchen cabinet were bent on severing the relationship between the governor and some of his friends, who are seen as “outsiders.” According to the source, the said outsiders were being favoured with huge contracts and other patronages at the expense of the cabinet members and the people of the state.

For instance, they are known to have queried the relationship between the governor and a former Managing Director of the defunct Daily Times, Mr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, who is said to have won a contract of N3 billion to supply exercise books to state schools.

Those members of the government are said to be unhappy with the role of such people and companies as Mr. Sylvester Okoronkowo, Mr. Ben Bruce of Silverbird, Mr. Franco Facioni of ALCON Nigeria Limited, Julius Berger PLC, Prince Tokunbo Sijuwade, son of the Ooni of Ife in Osun State, whom they describe as the conduits through which the governor siphons state funds.

They are uncomfortable that Governor Akpabio seems determined to empower his kith and kin from the Annang stock, as only members of the governor’s immediate family and his personal allies now manage contracts and state funds.

One of the grouses against the governor is the alleged insistence that all contractors supplying building materials should patronise his younger brother, Nsetip Akpabio, and that the same Nsetip should drill boreholes in the “security villages” in the local governments.

The “security villages” consist of houses for the police chiefs and heads of the state security services in all the local governments. The idea, it was gathered, is to secure the support of the security agencies toward the second term bid of the governor