Nigerian Concord Newspaper
Transparency International Group has called on th Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume to immediately release his Chief of Staff, Honourable Christopher Tarkaa to the investigation into a massive fraud which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the ICPC are conducting on him.
The anti graft group in a quarterly bulleting which was released to the media today by its Operational Manager, Mr. Jeffery Nwosu also berated the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti Corruption, Senator Emmanuel Udende for using his position to halt the investigations of both the EFCC and ICPC in the case of multiple corruption against the accused.
Recall that some pressure groups had few months ago petitioned both anti graft agencies with documents, proving that Mr. Tarkaa has been involving himself in some acts that are amounted to fraud running to some billions of Naira.
The press groups claimed in their separate Petitions to the EFCC and ICPC that Chris Tarkaa had used his position as the head of Senator George Akume’s personal and official staff to perfect some frauds within the Office of the SGF.
The petitioners asked the anti graft agencies to check the bank details of Mr. Chris Tarkaa in order to confirm some illegal transactions on them. They said the funds running into billions of Naira were from the shady deals which the accused did with the help of some directors in the SGF’s office.
One of the petitioners stated that there was a particular foreign account which was opened in Chris Tarkaa’s name, stressing that the said account had been used to launder several amounts of public funds by the accused.
Meanwhile, Transparency International Group in its bulleting today called on the EFCC and ICPC not to treat the allegations with a carrot approach, stressing that Senator George Akume is already being linked to the frauds because of the way the investigations are being handled by the anti graft agencies.
The group urged the agencies to immediately invite Tarkaa again for further questioning and then prosecute him if he is found wanting instead of sweeping the petitions under the rug just because of the influence from the SGF and Senator Udende.