Speaker of the Lagos state House of Assembly, Adeyemi Sabitun Ikuforiji has been arrested by Nigeria’s anti-graft police, the EFCC over allegations of perjury and stealing over N7 billion of state funds.
Ikuforiji who has been in hiding for over a week was said to have been smoked out after it was obvious to him that the EFCC agents were closing in on him. Operatives of the Commission are said to be grilling Ikuforiji at the moment in their headquarters office in Wuse area of Abuja. Though no official of the EFCC called on the matter was ready to make any comment, an anti-corruption activist whose petition led to the arrest of the speaker told us that he had seen Ikuforiji being taken to the EFCC office located in Wuse 2 area of Abuja at about 10am local time today.
It is still not certain if Ikuforiji will be granted bail today or detained but our source said he’s presently sweating making statements on the allegations against him in the Commission’s interrogation’s room.
Some of the allegations made by the group against the speaker who from available court records in the USA is an ex-convict include:
i. That Mr. Ikuforiji has used his position as Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly to collect a monthly running cost of N500 million on a first line charge. In the last 14 months, he has collected not less than N7 billion which he has been funneling abroad to buy properties through proxies and his automobile company called Brown Motors, located at 2 Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, Maryland, Ikeja Lagos.
ii. That Mr. Ikuforiji committed perjury by denying his record of conviction in his INEC forms submitted in 2007 and 2011, whereas he has been committed twice in the United States in 2001 and 2005.
Records available showed that Ikuforiji was first convicted in 2001 after his arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol on April 22, 2001 in Wake County, North Carolina. His court record with case number 2001CR040190 shows that his residence then was 2116 Saturn Street, Raleigh, NC 27603.
The Lagos House Speaker progressed in his record of crime when in 2005 he was convicted again for a $22,731.00 credit card fraud he had committed in 2003. The Hennepin county district court records show that Ikuforiji as at the time he committed the crime lived at 9112 Yates Bay, Minneapolis MN55443. He was said to have duped the Columbia Credit Service Inc which reported him to law enforcement agents over the $22,731.00 fraud. He had lived with one Omolara Cole as his wife and Abdul as their son before their marriage was dissolved on August 30, 1999.He was eventually convicted on August 3rd, 2005 in case number 27-CV-05-009568.
Ikuforiji whose records in the USA showed that he was born on August 15, 1958 however had a different story to tell about his life record to the institutions he claimed he attended in Romania. While in one of his school files in Romania, he claimed to have been born 0n August 24, 1954, yet in another Romanian school record, he claimed he was born on August 24, 1956. As if that was not enough, Ikuforiji lied under oath in his INEC form CF001 submitted to the electoral body while contesting for the Epe constituency 1 seat in the Lagos House of Assembly in 2003 that he never had a criminal record before. He equally gave a different version of his date of birth as August 24, 1958, bringing to four the dates of birth in the speaker’s records in USA, Romania and Nigeria.
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MEE | 9/2/2011 3:33:35 PM
A very big SHAME (if this story is true, anyway). The shame is not only on the speaker, but also on the INEC officials who failed woofully to perform thier responsibilities by investigating toroughly on the background check of this man as well as other contestants whose dirty acts are still in the closet, but also on the entire voters, who care less about the shameful characters and bad moral conducts of politicans. Many voters, for the sake of what they want to EAT as well as love for material things, are aware of, neglet and ignore the inconpetency of these people and thus sold the future of the entire country and that of thier children. What a great SHAME to this generation! Anyway fingers are crossed on what is going to happen next.
jane chichi | 9/2/2011 3:50:46 PM
Dis naija 4 u, imagine d man wan steal all our money, asshole authority don catch am, EFCC make una do una job well well oo, bcus if dis goat get out e go do worst, nd im family dey their dey ride big big cars, God don punish all of dem, nd dis na eye opener 4 his other collegues, THIEVES!
pinapple | 9/2/2011 4:42:04 PM |
lol wetin efcc wan do nothing the man go still waka commot for their net before 2 days, people wey waziri get mouth for their body na those wey no get God father once this one call his own God father now you will see him working out freely from that cell abeg forget this people na only those wey no get surname de suffer for their hand, how many of this evil men and women wey she don de catch all this while do ever go jail none all of them still de waka for street, so my sis leave matter for mathias na only God go save that country, everybody be eze onye agabalam
Barack | 9/2/2011 5:30:51 PM
can anybody say something about tribe? Starting from Tafa Balogun, Fani Kayode, OBJ, Dimeji Bankole, now s****d Ikuforujo, i await ur comment.
Obereagu in Guangzhou | 9/2/2011 5:33:23 PM
gbam i agree with you. is bankole not a free man? what of former governors? our country system encourages those in government to steal. a politician steals, efcc collect some from him and tell him to go and sin no more. the speaker should thank his stars he is not here in china, because of the huge amount of money that is involve, his head could have been taken out of of his body.
See the article here:
Breaking News!! EFCC Arrests, Grills Lagos Speaker, Adeyemi Ikuforiji Over N7 Billion Fraud