Mrs. Uzoma Cyril Attang-Director of Finance and Accounts. Ministry of Interior
A serving Director of Finance and Accounts at Nigeria's Ministry of the Interior, Mrs. Uzoma Cyril Attang, has landed her in court amongst her peers who allegedly looted over N39 billion from the Police Pension Office, Abuja.
The unprecedented development followed consistent pressure on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
But there seems to be no certainty justice will ever be done.
Mrs. Attang was an Assistant Director at the Police Pension Office between 2005 and 2008 but was removed from that office in late 2008 while Esai Dangabar and Atiku Abubakar Kigo were posted to that office.
In March 2012, the first 16-count charge was filed by the EFCC against officials of the Police Pension Office in which the commission alleged that the officials looted about N39 billion from the pension fund, but Mrs. Attang was conspicuously missing from the line-up of persons accused of the rime.
Before that March 2012 charge was filed, Mrs. Attang had been having a running battle with a whistleblower, Mr. Chukwuemeka Aniagor, with whom she was reported to have enjoyed a previous business relationship. He, however, blew the whistle on her numerous properties acquired while in Police Pensions. Both parties then resorted to the courts where they traded blames and claims.
Soon after the bubble burst at Police Pensions, Mr. Aniagor approached investigators with records of properties owned by Mrs. Attang in Abuja and Lekki, a high brow area in Lagos state.
Mr. Aniagor's efforts towards getting Mr.. Attang to give account of her service while in Police Pensions suffered a series of setbacks as he was subsequently arrested and dragged before an Abuja Area Court on the strength of a petition authored by Mrs.. Attang. In it, she claimed that Mr. Aniagor duped her of some money which she had given him to set up for her a company called Royal Diadem Business Logistics Limited.
The move was to keep the whistle blower out of circulation and stem the myriads of information he was divulging to investigators of the pension fraud.
That move however failed when Mr. Aniagor and his lawyer, Mr. Alex Oketa, took the case to an Abuja High Court which offered Mr. Aniagor a breather in his quest to bring Mrs. Attang to justice.
As the investigators of the pension fraud at the EFCC kept putting off the arrest of Mrs. Attang, the whistleblower filed a complaint the CCB. He led officials of the Code of Conduct Bureau to Lagos to identify the properties owned by Mrs. Attang in Lagos and Abuja, as well as some bank accounts being maintained by the director in some commercial banks.
On the strength of those discoveries, the CCB invited Mrs. Attang and slammed her with a five-count charge.
On July 3, 2012, the Bureau, through its Legal Adviser and Prosecutor, Mr. Simon Egede, filed an application to commence the trial of Mrs. Attang before the Code of Conduct Tribunal pursuant to section 24 of the Bureau's Act.
The top civil servant was accused of engaging and participating in the management and running of private companies engaged in business and trade, in contravention of section 6 (b) of the Code of Conduct and Bureau Act.
The charge, alongside the Application to Commence Trial filed by Mr. Simon Egede, alleged that Mrs. Attang, in 2007, registered and participated as Director in the running of a private business concern known as Royal Diadem Business Logistics Limited, while in full time employment as a public officer in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
Other companies linked to the Director of Accounts are Status Symbol Rentals Limited and Amazing Grace Property Development Company Limited. The companies operate and maintain accounts in many commercial banks with amounts running into hundreds of millions of Naira in their credits.
Count 5 of the charge specifically accused Mrs. Attang of owning some 48,500,000 shares worth over a 100 million Naira in these companies, which income is not fairly attributable to her salaries and allowances as a public officer in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, a crime, according to the charge, that is contrary to section 15 (3) of the Act.
At that time, the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Justice Danladi Yakubu Umar, upon the receipt of the Application to commence trial of Mrs. Attang, fixed her trial to commence on September 13, 2012.
for more on this story, click on the link below:
http://kaaf.com/2013/02/Another-Pension-Fund-Thief-Uzoma-Attang--Desperately-Moves-To-Avert-Justice-282520
February 08, 2013, 07:55:29 AM