N96bn fraud: Supreme Court dismisses Amaechi’s appeal against probe

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal by former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, against the decision by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, to set up a panel to probe the latter’s eight-year tenure as governor of the state.

Amaechi, a presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was the governor of Rivers State between 2007 and 2015.

Governor Wike had constituted a seven-man probe panel to probe some transactions estimated at about N96billion carried out by Rivers State Government under Amaechi, adding that the ex-governor’s administration fraudulently sold some assets belonging to the state.

The listed assets are Omoku Gas Turbine, Afam Gas Turbine, Trans Amadi Gas Turbine, Eleme Gas Turbine, Olympia Hotel and the award of contract for the execution of Mono Rail Project.

The immediate past Minister of Transportation, however, challenged the constitution of the panel at the High Court, arguing among others, that the planned probe was intended to witch-hunt and humiliate him.

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Amaechi’s suit was dismissed by the Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

He equally lost at the Court of Appeal prompting him to approach the Supreme Court.

However, the apex court, on Friday, held that Amaechi’s appeal lacked merit.

The Supreme Court also fined the former two-term governor of Rivers State N1 million just as it ordered Amaechi to face the probe panel set up by the state government to investigate his eight-year tenure as governor.

The Star