. 300 vehicles feared missing .You lied, Okungbowa tells PDP spokesman
.Ignores NBA-BENIN chair’s protest
By Andy Asemota
Despite the protest of the chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Benin chapter, NBA-BENIN, at the weekend, the Edo State Vehicles Recovery Committee on Monday said the decision of the state government on the exercise will be implemented to the letter.
Speaking in Edo State Broadcasting Service (EBS) radio programme, the committee chairman, Kelly Okungbowa, alias Capacity Ebo Stone, said in fulfilment of the mandate of the panel, the number of official vehicles it had traced to private hands had risen to no fewer than 300 from the initial 100 vehicles.
Okungbowa, who further disclosed that an estimated 60 vehicles had been recovered by the committee from top officials and VIPs of the former administration, warned that any indicted official or VIP ignoring the committee’s advice to surrender the vehicles in his possession won’t escape justice.
According to him, the committee had issued another 72 hour ultimatum to all affected persons to surrender the missing government vehicles, adding that the police and whistle blowers are helping the committee to track the vehicles even beyond Edo State.
He explained that the said Sport Utility Vehicles ( SUVs) and others were issued to heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and VIPs by the previous government but they were not returned to the government at the expiration of that tenure.
Okungbowa specifically dismissed the claims of the former commissioner for information turned spokesman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chris Nehikhare, that the Toyota Prado SUV in his possession was auctioned to him as an unserviceable and delisted vehicle.
The committee chairman also passed a damning verdict on the immediate past administration under Godwin Obaseki, saying the government purportedly auctioned many vehicles that were barely a year or two old at ridiculous prices to its cronies.
Okungbowa insisted that the sum of N700,000 that Nehikhare claimed to have paid for the SUV auctioned off to him did not reflect the true value of the vehicle, he said, is estimated at over N100m.
On the drama over the committee’s recent attempt to seize the state government’s vehicle from former attorney general of the state, Woke Iyamu (SAN) at a high court premises in Benin, Okungbowa expressed regret that Iyamu pledged to return two SUVs in his possession but had reneged on the promise.
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