The governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2019 general elections, Precious Elekima, has filed a suit in the Federal High Court demanding the probe of former Governor of the state, Nyesom Wike in the handling of funds.
Elekima, who is joined in the suit by the Incorporated Trustees of Peoples Life Improvement Foundation (PLIF), a group, marked FHC/PH/CS/199/2023 claimed that Wike diverted funds belonging to Rivers.
They claimed that they decided to file the suit because the defendants failed to act on their petition dated May 23, 2023.
They prayed the court to compel the inspector-general of police (IGP), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) to look into how Wike spent funds in his eight years in office and the banks that he used in executing some of his projects.
According to the suit, Wike allegedly “conspired with officials of the public service of Rivers state and officials of the 5th to 16th respondents (the banks) to fraudulently withdraw and encash the humongous sum of N117,000,000,000 funds belonging to the Rivers state government in excess of the threshold permitted by extant laws and financial regulations with intent to misappropriate and divert same and did in fact divert same for his personal benefit”.
They also claimed that Wike allegedly conspired with other officials of the government to” fraudulently withdrew, laundered and embezzled huge funds from the Rivers state internally generated revenue collected and domiciled in several accounts with the 5th to 16th respondents”.
