June 7, 2010
Saharareporters has further discovered that last week’s attempt by the Akwa Ibom state governor, Godswill Akpabio, to display a Mercedes Benz GL 450 he used in bribing the EFCC chairperson, Farida Waziri, was a carefully-orchestrated lie between the duo to deceive the public. And the Lagos State government has now declared even the license plate of the vehicle to be fake. As Saharareporters unearths further damaging proof of Governor Akpabio’s deceitfulness, contrary to his insistence on running a “transparent” government, we hereby call for his resignation, in the interest of the people of Akwa Ibom State and this country.
Here are the facts:
• Contrary to the claims by Governor Akpabio, Saharareporters’ findings show that Daimler Benz never manufactured a vehicle with chassis number WDC 16487 22A 390877. After we ripped up Governor Akpabio’s bluster about the car with clear, incontrovertible facts, Mr. Usoro now admits that the chassis number was “misquoted” in one of the photos given to their chosen journalists in Uyo, and attached to the rebuttal he sent to Saharareporters.
• Saharareporters’ auto-check with Daimler Benz has also revealed that, contrary to the Governor’s story, the vehicle, with chassis number WDC 16487 11A 390877, was exported from Jacksonville, Florida, USA in March 2008 to Nigeria. This supports Saharareporters earlier story that the vehicle did exist and was supplied to Governor Akpabio by a Lagos auto dealer by the name Charles Ahize. We reiterate that the vehicle was given to Mrs. Waziri on December 3rd, 2008, and driven to a hideout in Gboko, Benue State.
• Saharareporters’ check with the Lagos State Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (MVAA) concerning the ownership of the vehicle with Lagos license plate number: SB 456 AAA, which Governor Akpabio claimed was in his security pool, shows that the license plate was issued to one Chief C. Orizu, with an address of Adotolo Nnewi in Anambra State, and not to the Akwa Ibom State government.
• Lagos State says the vehicle registered to that license plate (SB 456 AAA) had a different engine and chassis number from the Mercedes Benz GL 450 displayed by Governor Akpabio to a select group of journalists in Uyo last week. The vehicle, with Engine Number: 27595340029054 and Chassis: WDD 2211761A277469 was a Mercedes Benz S600 saloon car with black color.
What all of these mean is that Governor Akpabio, who seems determined to deceive Nigerians with a “transparency” gospel he evidently does not practice, is going to have to come up with another tale for a select group of “yes” journalists.
Meanwhile, a source knowledgeable about the commotion that attended the exhibition and subsequent admittance by Akpabio that the car we correctly located as having been used in bribing Mrs. Waziri was indeed in his pool of security vehicles, said the car was retrieved from Mrs. Waziri and licence plate placed on it and might have been returned to her. This probably means that following Saharareporters exposure of the deal, Mrs. Waziri was not able to register what amounted to a Greek gift, and the governor had to find another way of correcting the situation.
When Saharareporters contacted Akpabio's media aide, Usoro Usoro, he stuck to the position that our story was false, claiming that the governor had denied it twice but needed to come up with evidence this time around since the issue would not go away. Asked to provide the vehicle registration papers to Saharareporters, he said that since it was a “security vehicle,” he could not do that immediately, and promised to get back to us. He has yet to do so.
Usoro also attempted to dispel the notion about the location of the registration, saying that any Nigerian could register a vehicle anywhere in the country. That may be true, but we have yet to hear of a situation where there are so many discrepancies, and every explanation worsens the original story.
Of the people in the pool of journalists before whom the car was paraded last week, he named national publications such as The Nation, The Guardian and The Sun, as well as a few local newspapers, including Quest, Pioneer and Shield, but none of them seemed to have asked any of the elementary questions.
We stand by our story: that Governor Akpabio bought the scandalously-expensive half a million dollar car as a bribe to Mrs. Waziri; that following our exposé it took him 18 months to find what seemed to be a passable alibi; and that that cure is worse than the disease as it shows the governor to have dabbled in forgery in an effort to paint over his crimes.
Saharareporters recommends that both Governor Akpabio and Mrs. Waziri resign their offices within seven days, and submit themselves to the fullest examination of the law. If they fail to, we call upon relevant civil society bodies in the country to institute any measures within the law to ensure they are removed and prosecuted.
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