Okorocha remains in EFCC custody on allegation of N7.9b

 

Former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, has spent his third night in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), following his arrest on Monday.

Okorocha is being interrogated by the EFCC for alleged N7.9 billion money laundering and choice property allegedly traced to him by the Commission.

An EFCC source disclosed that Okorocha was still being grilled and would not be allowed to go home until the operatives were satisfied with his submission.

“As we speak, former governor Okorocha is still writing his statement at the headquarters of the EFCC and from the look of things he is not likely to be left off the hook until the operatives are satisfied with the answers over the questions being put to him regarding the amount traced in banks to him and the choice property spread across many towns and cities in Nigeria,” the source confided.

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“The former governor is however cooperating with his interrogators and is writing his own statement on what he has been confronted with. It is only after his statement that those handling his matter would decide the next line of action: either to charge him to court or free him.

“But the truth of the matter is that those interrogating him, know exactly what to do,” one of the officials familiar with the case, elaborated.

Okorocha, two-term governor of Imo State (2011-2019), was picked up by operatives of the EFCC in Abuja and taken to the headquarters of the commission in Jabi, where he has been since then.

But he has denied that such amount and account belong to him. The Head of the Port Harcourt Zone of the EFCC, Imam Usman, had spoken of the tracing of at least N7.9 billion in several Nigerian banks to the former governor.

Usman said: “Within the period in review, the Commission succeeded in freezing about N7.9 billion in different accounts. Out of this, N2.7billion was released to the Imo state government to enable it pay staff salaries and pensions.

“Also, properties worth billions of Naira recovered in the course of the investigation have been forfeited to the Federal Government.”