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Help Recover Missing N300M Meant For Itsekiri Development, Warri Chief Appeals To Buhari, Okowa

Published

4 years ago

September 24, 2021

Legal practitioner and Warri Chief, Robinson Ariyo, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Malam Abubakar Malami to prevail on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to unravel the mystery behind the missing N300 million from the account of the Itsekiri Regional Development Committee (IRDC).

The Egogo of Warri kingdom who made the appeal on Thursday during a press conference at the Olu of Warri Palace, said he resorted to sending a ‘Save Our Souls’ (SOS) to President Buhari, Governor Okowa and Mallam Malami following the alleged failure of the EFCC, the judiciary, the Force Headquarters, Abuja and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bring the alleged culprits to book and retrieve the money.

The IRDC is the product of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) initiated by Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL) to handle its corporate social responsibilities in 23 oil producing and impacted communities affected by its operations in Itsekiri land.

Recall that some social critics, sometime in 2019, had dragged the IRDC to court over N1.2 billion in the account meant for developmental projects making the money inaccessible.

Chief Ariyo said following a complaint from Engr. Tuasor Omatseye, Aginejuone Agbonekuya, Destiny Noritsegho and six others over a missing N300m from the N1.2 billion in Keystone Bank Plc account belonging to IRDC, he had several times approached the courts in Warri, the EFCC in Benin, the CBN and the police with suits and petitions, but was frustrated on frivolous excuses.

“The project account has three principal signatories: representatives of Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL), Delta State government, and the leadership of the IRDC.

“CNL is signatory category A; meaning without it, no money can be withdrawn from the account,” he narrated.

He alleged that “at a Warri high court, there was a successful conspiracy to strike out the name of one of our clients – Aginejuone Agbonekuya.

“He then appealed that his name should not be struck out. The case was then transferred from Warri to Effurun.

“A team from the IRDC leadership, from the bank and some of the lawyers involved in the case came together without anyone’s knowledge and planned that N300m should be withdrawn from the account and shared in the name of ‘professional legal fees’ for lawyers.

“To do this, they needed to remove the names of those parties to the case who are claimants and who’ll not co-operate with them.

“So they filed a suit. It was in the morning of October 19, 2020, that they filed a court process to remove the names of two parties : Aginejuone and CNL whom they know would not co-operate with them.

“In the same morning when they filed this, they filed another one termed ‘Terms of Settlement.’ It means as soon as they removed those parties’ names, they filed a Term of Settlement and they adopted as a judgement of court that same day.

“In the Terms of Settlement, they wrote that they’ll take professional fees as ‘frontline charge’ from the account.

“Meanwhile, these cases were still pending in the appeal and Supreme Court. Ordinarily, before a party is removed from a case, the person should have a notice of it. This didn’t happen.

“They filed the Term of Settlement to close the case in the lower court, meanwhile the cases in the appellate courts are still subsisting,” he noted.

According to him, the alleged fraud started when the N300m out of the N2.1 billion in the account was withdrawn as 10 per cent legal fee.

“They claimed that the lawyers charged 10 per cent and I was a lawyer in the case. We never charged such. 10 per cent of what?

“The money we met or the one we went to generate? Let’s even assume that it’s 10 per cent, but we know that N300 million is not 10 per cent of N2.1b. If they said it’s 10 per cent, it means they’ve stolen N90 million,” he alleged.

Chief Ariyo further explained that
“the leadership of the IRDC immediately applied for the order of the judgement of court which the judge, that morning, signed and they went ahead to sign Form 48 of the bank telling the bank that if it didn’t release the money, they’d commit the bank to prison.

“So, they were able to withdraw the money,” he averred.

He, however, exonerated CNL, the category A signatory to the account, saying it did not sign the document.

Displaying some relevant legal documents to back up his claims, the lawyer said the oil giant had deposed to an affidavit to the effect that it did not sign the papers before the withdrawal was made.

“Chevron has no notice of it, neither did it consent to the withdrawal of N300m from the IRDC account with the bank.

“They said they were not also privy to the ‘out of court’ settlement of the case. That the notice of whithdrawal was done in bad faith to surreptitiously remove the suit from thr court.

“They also removed CNL from the suit knowing they won’t agree with them,” he further alleged.

Narrating where the EFCC erred, the solicitor said the anti-graft agency was petitioned on November 24, 2020 over the infractions.

“We petitioned the EFCC and annexed all the documents to Benin. At the end, the EFCC said we had reported the matter to too many agencies and that there’s a civil matter in the court so they can’t investigate further,” he asserted, saying there’s a court judgement that support that both civil and criminal matters can go together.

While alleging compromise by the EFCC officials, Chief Ariyo said his team wrote the CBN to penalise the erring bank for unprofessional conduct of allowing a withdrawal from a corporate account without the compulsory assent of Signatory A.

“CBN replied saying that since there was a civil matter in court, they can’t look into the case.

“We wrote the police at Zone 5, Benin. They found merit in it. They invited the IRDC leaders, who reluctantly came with govt officials.

“They were let go without any form of documentation. After more pressure, the police issued a second invitation and later a bench warrant.

“As they were about to arrest them, a call came from Abuja saying Force Headquarters had taken over the matter. And that we, the petitioners, were suspect of engaging in a conduct capable of breaching public peace,” he narrated.

He called on President Buhari, Governor Okowa and the Attorney General of the Federation, Malami, Chief Ariyo, he disclosed that he had been offered sumptuous gratification to jettison the case against his conscience and well-being of squalid Itsekiri communities, adding that his team escaped the travesty of justice when he eventually petitioned Buhari and Malami.

“I then petitioned Buhari and Malami which slowed them down. I’ve gone to the executive, it has failed. I’ve gone to the judiciary, it has failed. Where else will I go to for justice except the Fourth Estate of the Realm,” the Egogo of Warri Kingdom queried.

Ariyo, while underscoring the danger in abandoning the case, warned: “this is too dangerous. We live in a society of public private-partnership. I’m under pressure to remove the case from the court.

“But I can’t keep quiet. Having failed in the regular court, I want the court of public opinion. I’m being branded as someone stalling the balance of N1.8 billion in the bank.

“I’m bothered when people do evil and get away with it, it encourages more people to do evil.

“There are primary schools with leaking roofs, no chairs, no books in Itsekiri land and yet the embezzlers are living comfortably. Oil and gas won’t be here forever.”

Headline

South Korea, Japan Protest China, Russia Aircraft Incursions

Published

2 days ago

December 10, 2025

Editor

South Korea and Japan reacted furiously on Wednesday after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols around the two countries, with both Seoul and Tokyo scrambling jets.

South Korea said it had protested with representatives of China and Russia, while Japan said it had conveyed its “serious concerns” over national security.

According to Tokyo, two Russian Tu-95 nuclear-capable bombers on Tuesday flew from the Sea of Japan to rendezvous with two Chinese H-6 bombers in the East China Sea, then conducted a joint flight around the country.

The incident comes as Japan is locked in a dispute with China over comments Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made about Taiwan.

The bombers’ joint flights were “clearly intended as a show of force against our nation, Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi wrote on X Wednesday.

Top government spokesman Minoru Kihara said that Tokyo had “conveyed to both China and Russia our serious concerns over our national security through diplomatic channels”.

Seoul said Tuesday the Russian and Chinese warplanes entered its air defence zone and that a complaint had been lodged with the defence attaches of both countries in the South Korean capital.

“Our military will continue to respond actively to the activities of neighbouring countries’ aircraft within the KADIZ in compliance with international law,” said Lee Kwang-suk, director general of the International Policy Bureau at Seoul’s defence ministry, referring to the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone.

South Korea also said it deployed “fighter jets to take tactical measures in preparation for any contingencies” in response to the Chinese and Russian incursion into the KADIZ.

The planes were spotted before they entered the air defence identification zone, defined as a broader area in which countries police aircraft for security reasons but which does not constitute their airspace.

Japan’s defence ministry also scrambled fighter jets to intercept the warplanes.

Beijing later Tuesday confirmed it had organised drills with Russia’s military according to “annual cooperation plans”.

Moscow also described it as a routine exercise, saying it lasted eight hours and that some foreign fighter jets followed the Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Since 2019, China and Russia have regularly flown military aircraft into South Korea’s air defence zone without prior notice, citing joint exercises.

In November last year, Seoul scrambled jets as five Chinese and six Russian military planes flew through its air defence zone.

Similar incidents occurred in June and December 2023, and in May and November 2022.

Meanwhile, Tokyo said Monday it had scrambled jets in response to repeated takeoff and landing exercises involving fighter jets and military helicopters from China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier as it cruised in international waters near Japan.

It also summoned Beijing’s ambassador after military aircraft from the Liaoning locked radar onto Japanese jets, the latest incident in the row ignited by Takaichi’s comments backing Taiwan.

Takaichi suggested last month that Japan would intervene militarily in any Chinese attack on the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims as its own and has not ruled out seizing by force.

AFP

Headline

Thousands Reported To Have Fled DR Congo Fighting As M23 Closes On Key City

Published

2 days ago

December 9, 2025

Editor

Fierce fighting rocked the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday as the Rwanda-backed M23 militia rapidly advanced towards the strategic city of Uvira, with tens of thousands of people fleeing over the nearby border into Burundi, sources said.

The armed group and its Rwandan allies were just a few kilometres (miles) north of Uvira, security and military sources told AFP.

The renewed violence undermined a peace agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump that Kinshasa and Kigali signed less than a week ago, on December 4.

Trump had boasted that the Rwanda-DRC conflict was one of eight he has ended since returning to power in America in January.

With the new fighting, more than 30,000 people have fled the area around Uvira for Burundi in the space of a week, a UN source and a Burundian administrative source told AFP.

The Burundian source told AFP on condition of anonymity he had recorded more than 8,000 daily arrivals over the past two days, and 30,000 arrivals in one week. A source in the UN refugee agency confirmed the figure.

The Rwanda-backed M23 offensive comes nearly a year after the group seized control of Goma and Bukavu, the two largest cities in eastern DRC, a strategic region rich in natural resources and plagued by conflict for 30 years.

Local people described a state of growing panic as bombardments struck the hills above Uvira, a city of several hundred thousand residents.

“Three bombs have just exploded in the hills. It’s every man for himself,” said one resident reached by telephone.

“We are all under the beds in Uvira — that’s the reality,” another resident said, while a representative of civil society who would not give their name described fighting on the city’s outskirts.

Fighting was also reported in Runingo, another small locality some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Uvira, as the M23 and the Rwandan army closed in.

Burundi views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat, given that it sits across Lake Tanganyika from Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura.

The city is the main sizeable locality in the area yet to fall to the M23 and its capture would essentially cut off the zone from DRC control.

Burundi deployed about 10,000 soldiers to eastern DRC in October 2023 as part of a military cooperation agreement, and security sources say reinforcements have since taken that presence to around 18,000 men.

The M23 and Rwandan forces launched their Uvira offensive on December 1.

Rich in natural resources, eastern DRC has been choked by successive conflicts for around three decades.

Violence in the region intensified early this year when M23 fighters seized the key eastern city of Goma in January, followed by Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, a few weeks later.

– Regional risk –

The peace deal meant to quell the fighting was signed last Thursday in Washington by Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, with Trump — who called it a “miracle” deal — also putting his signature to it.

The agreement includes an economic component intended to secure US supplies of critical minerals present in the region, as America seeks to challenge China’s dominance in the sector.

But even on the day of the signing, intense fighting took place in South Kivu, where Uvira is located, which included the bombing of houses and schools.

Witnesses and military sources in Uvira said that Congolese soldiers fleeing the fighting had arrived in the city overnight Monday and shops were looted at dawn.

Several hundred Congolese and Burundian soldiers had already fled to Burundi on Monday, according to military sources, since the M23 fighters embarked on their latest offensive from Kamanyola, some 70 kilometres north of Uvira.
Since the M23’s lightning offensive early this year, the front had largely stabilised over the past nine months.

Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye warned in February there was a danger of the conflict escalating into a broader regional war, a fear echoed by the United Nations.

Headline

‘Santa Claus’ Arrested For Possessing, Distributing Child Sexual Abuse Material

Published

2 days ago

December 9, 2025

Editor

A 64-year-old man from Hamilton Township has been arrested in the United States after investigators linked him to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material.

The suspect, identified as Mark Paulino, had been working as a “Santa for hire” at holiday events, a role that placed him in repeated contact with children.

Mercer County officials said the investigation began on 4 December when detectives were alerted to suspicious online activity involving the uploading of child pornography from a residence in Hamilton Township. The probe quickly identified Paulino, a retired elementary school teacher, as the person involved.

Police stated that Paulino had presented himself online as a retired teacher and had recently performed as Santa Claus for photographs and private, corporate, and organisational events. “Because this role involved direct, repeated contact with children, detectives worked around the clock to secure a search warrant,” authorities explained.

The warrant was executed on 5 December, during which police seized multiple items regarded as evidentiary. Paulino was taken into custody without incident and charged with possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials, as well as endangering the welfare of a child.

Prosecutors have filed a motion to detain him pending trial. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have urged members of the public with relevant information to come forward.