The lawyers to the embattled presidential spokesman, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has admitted that he collected reasonable amount of money on the controversial contracts in the two states.
The Lagos law firm of Yemi Gbonegun and Co who spoke for the presidential aide on Tuesday said that the rural road construction contracts were awarded in 2004 in Benue and 2005 Imo states to companies in which Dr. Okupe has substantial interests and served as Chairman, but denied they were awarded to him personally.
According to the law firm,” beyond the mobilisation payments, those companies received other payments over a period exceeding two years continuously for work done”.
“We also confirm that contrary to reports in the media, on no account did any of the companies bolt away with any money and if they had, the state governments would have legally had recourse to the Bank Guarantees issued, held the banks accountable and recovered their monies,” the statement said.
Its further disclosed that the disputes about certificates of payments arose in both transactions, claiming that this is normal between a contractor and its employers, and that the issues were at different times thoroughly investigated by the EFCC, but that no fraud or any criminality was ever found against any of the Companies.
Its also said that the case of Imo State Government a settlement agreement out of court was reached while in Benue State both parties agreed to go in for arbitration in accordance with the provisions of the signed contract document,” it further said.
The statement by Yemi Gbonegun and Co which has raised more questions than its answered as it could not did not explain why, as previously reported by the media that, Dr. Okupe was personally detained by the EFCC for an entire month in 2006.
In 2005, during the tenure of Governor Achike Udenwa, Okupe went to Imo state with a business partner, the Israeli businessman, Ilan Salman. Okupe got a contract to import Romix Soil fix, a soil stabilising substance, from South Africa for the construction of four kilometres of road in each of the 27 local government areas at the rate of N14 million per km.
This amounted to a whooping sum of N1.512 billion.
Okupe was paid mobilization fee of N400 million twice.
He was then paid another N350 million for the little work done, with just about 8km out of the 108km Romix promised to construct.
This means that Okupe was paid over N1.2billion, with very little to show for it.
The presidential spokesman was alleged to have collaborated with the former Speaker of the Imo State Assembly, Chief Godfrey Dikeocha to defruad state.
In its the anti-graft agency intensified effort t to un-ravel the mystery behind daylight fraud, Okupe’s engineers were arrested in Owerri alongside the LGA chairmen and moved to Ikoyi, Lagos.
His head office, which was at that time on Isale Eko Street in Dolphin Estate, was sealed up and Chief Okupe locked up for one month by the EFCC, but he was never tried.
The situation was the same in Benue State through one of his company, Messrs Value Trust Investments Ltd., Okupe secured a contract valued at N2.303 billion, again for the construction of rural roads across the state and was paid N886.8m in July 17,2006 .
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