The Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro who retires from office tomorrow, used a fictitious name and signature to secure a N166 million facility from the defunct Lead Bank, documents available to Saharareporters reveal.
Mr. Okiro used the name of "Bessy Okiro" to obtain the loan between 2000 and 2001, to execute a pipeline-laying contract he won from AGIP Oil Nigeria Limited (NAOC). The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, in a bombshell letter, has elaborately accused Okiro defrauding the defunct bank of the unpaid loan. In the letter, the NDIC demanded that Okiro to pay back the money within 48 hours.
The letter to Okiro, dated 20 July 2009, with reference number OOC/ABJ/01/07/09 and signed by NDIC lawyer, Mr. Okunade Olorundare (SAN), cliams that Okiro on January 16, 2006, when the banking licence of Lead Bank Ltd was revoked, used a family business, Hekiro Nig. Ltd, to cream off N166,597,365.97 as a loan to engage in a contractual process with AGIP.
The letter states: “NDIC, as a liquidator of Lead Bank Ltd, wrote you a demand letter on May 9, 2007, asking you for proposal on how you would want to liquidate the debt.”
It further states, “By various documents submitted to us by our client, you personally guaranteed the loan by mortgaging your landed property at Abeokuta, covered by Certificate of Occupancy No. 022226 in the name of Mike Mbama Okiro, which you obtained while in Ogun State Command of the Nigeria Police.
“From some of the documents passed to us, you signed as chairman, while in some, you signed as Director for Hekiro Nigeria Limited. However, despite the fact that you are a police officer and knowing the implication of forging a signature, you signed as Bessy Okiro and which signature is consistent with your true signature as Sir Mike Okiro on some of the documents available to us.”
Okiro used his international passport No. AO696925 in opening the corporate account number 32620009260 with the Port Harcourt branch of Lead Bank. The N166 million facilities were drawn from that account.
The NDIC’s letter also accused Okiro of conflict of interest as well as failure to declare his interest in the company as required by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) even as he had embarked on prosecuting former EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu for a similar offence using the Attorney-General of the Federation and collaborator, Michael Aondoakaa. That part of the letter reads: “Apart from signing as Bessy Okiro, we have discovered that you did not declare your interest in Hekiro Nigeria Ltd to the Code of Conduct Bureau as required by the 1999 Constitution.”
The NDIC letter also stated that after a series of efforts to recover the loan, Okiro’s wife, Hera, on April 30, used a Fidelity Bank Cheque No. 00553907 to pay N5 million. Further efforts to get the IG to pay up led to harassment of NDIC officials culminating in police arrest and arraignment of the MD, Mr. Ganiyu Ogunleye, for fraud. That was a rare action against fraud by the police under Mr. Okiro’s watch.
Saharareporters was first to expose Mr. okiro’s business dealings using his family as a front. See story below:
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
Okiro and Sons', Police Liability Company
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });