Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
The APC led government of President Muhammadu Buhari recently has been applauded for taking a giant step in the right direction by initiating the whistle-blower policy with the primary goal to support the fight against financial crimes and corruption. However, the initiative may not be living up to expectation, as many Nigerians are of the opinion that the government is not doing enough to provide adequate protection from harassment or intimidation to whistle-blowers, many who most times go against all odds to provide concrete information that help Nigeria’s ministry of finance recover stolen funds through agencies like the EFCC or ICPC.
This happens to be the case with a Nigerian Citizen, Mr. Osiobe Frankline Ovie, who recently appealed to the Presidency and the Attorney General of the federation on a threat to his life for whistle blowing over one billion fraud against officials of Delta State Polytechnic Oghara.
In his letter addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Attorney General of the Federation made available to this online news medium, Mr. Osiobe disclosed how his life has come under serious threat after he exposed the wicked and wanton looting by the former rector of the Delta State Polytechnic Oghara Dr. Mrs. Clara Sogbaike and other Principal Officers of the Polytechnic.
According to Mr. Osiobe, he was abducted by unknown gunmen on the instruction of Mrs. Clara Sogbaike the former rector, severally beaten and threatened by his abductors to go and withdraw all the petitions he wrote to EFCC and ICPC or else he will be killed. After he reported the incident to the police, his appointment as a lecturer of the polytechnic was automatically suspended by the school administration over false allegations of extortion, examination malpractice and sexual harassment as the arrested former rector and his gang of miscreants were granted bail by the Nigerian police.
Mrs. Sogbaike, known for her constant abuse of office also proceeded to terminate his appointment using an unconstitutional Joint Academic Board/Council Committee made up of the same crooks that were initially arrested and granted bail by the police.
Not deterred by the termination of his appointment, Mr. Osiobe followed up the criminal aspect of the case against them with the Police, EFCC and ICPC. This made the Force Criminal Investigative & Intelligence Department to order the transfer of the case file and suspects from Police Command Headquarters Asaba based on his petition to the DIG FCIID Abuja in August 2014. However, instead of appearing before the DIG FCIID Abuja, the suspects filed a Fundamental Human Rights Suit in Asaba High Court restraining the IGP, CP Delta, the IPO and Osiobe from further harassing, investigating and arresting them.
The suspects also sued the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, The Honourable Minister of Justice, EFCC, EFCC Chairman, Code of Conduct Bureau Chairman, and the Executive Secretary National Human Right Commission but unlike their previous successful suit the court dismissed the case for lacking in merit.
Reacting to a petition on the matter, the Presidency through the DIG FCIID, Hycent Dagala directed the CP Legal and OC Legal in Asaba and other officers connected to the case to harmonize all the petitions against the former rector and immediately swing into action but alas, the officers did a shoddy job as evidence of bullets and other dangerous weapons recovered from one of the suspects being investigated alongside the former rector were hidden and the police without requesting for bank statements of over 15 accounts which was purportedly used to loot money, exonerated all the suspects of any wrong doing and instructed that the complainant instead should be charged to court for providing the police with false information.
Mr. Osiobe immediately protested to the IGP about the conduct of the IPO who recommended the compromising report without proper investigation. It was later discovered and confirmed that the misleading Legal Advice used to sue the President in Court was forged and released even before the authentic one was released by IGP to the suspects.
A comparison of the two Legal advice SecretReporters learnt, showed that both were of different typing characters but with similar contents thus proving that confidential files of the Nigeria Police were released to suspects with which they forged the Legal advice and included it as exhibit in the suit they filed in Court to restrain the President, EFCC and others from further investigating them claiming that they have been exonerated already by the IGP over the same matter.
Reacting to the forgery, the CP Legal Barr. David Igbodo directed one of his prosecutors, Inspector Wisdom Madaki to go through the case file again. After thorough investigation he confirmed that the suspects had a case to answer and promised to take necessary action which he never did up till date.
Credible sources within the police command headquarters confided in SecretReporters that no disciplinary action was taken against the corrupt police officer, CSP Dalatu Usman, who perpetrated the serious acts of misconduct and corruption by leaking classified police documents all because he had a godfather in the Nigerian Police.
The whistle-blower, Mr. Osiobe also disclosed that to further perfect the assassination plot on him, the AIG zone 5 Benin reacting to a false report by one of the suspects Barr. Brave Enodeh, placed a “Post No Bill and an arrest order” on his Ecobank Account when the account was neither used for money laundering nor illegal money transactions.
According to Osiobe, there are grand conspiracies by the suspects to use the Office of the AIG Zone 5 Benin-City to perfect their plans to completely get rid of him at all cost in order to end their ongoing fraud case. He had no other option as a whistle-blower in the one billion Naira fraud case than to flee from the Country for the safety of his life, as he was officially declared wanted like a common criminal by the AIG Zone 5 in a Press Statement he issued to News Agency of Nigeria on the 1st of April 2018.
