$12m contract probe: Uzodinma asks FG panel to withdraw invitation letter

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Imo State, Mr Hope Uzodinma, has asked the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property, to withdraw its letter inviting him for questioning in respect of an alleged $12m contract fraud.

Contending that the invitation letter was a violation of subsisting court orders, he threatened to institute a contempt suit against the chairman of the panel, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, if the letter was not withdrawn.

The SPIPRPP had in November disclosed that it was investigating the serving senator representing Imo West Senatorial District over his alleged failure to execute a contract of $12m for the dredging of Calabar channel for which he had been allegedly paid.

Obono-Obla had said operatives of his panel had on November 12, 2018, arrested Uzodinma at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, but released him shortly after he promised to turn himself in the following day.

The senator had yet to appear before the panel but has denied any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, the panel subsequently sent a formal invitation letter dated November 29, 2018 to the senator, through the Clerk of the National Assembly.

Our correspondent on Wednesday obtained a copy of Uzodinma’s letter to the panel describing his invitation for probe over the allegation as contemptuous of court.

Uzodinma, through the letter dated December 11, 2018 and signed on his behalf by his lawyer, I.E Oguaju-Dike, contended that the invitation was a violation of the terms of the subsisting orders of court.

He also said the alleged $12m Calabar channel dredging contract was a subject of three pending suits before the Lagos State High Court and the Calabar Divisions of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.

Obono-Obla had said the senator had shunned series of previous invitations by the panel.

(PUNCH)