The former Abia State Governor Senator Theodore Orji was arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja by agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over his refusal to abide by the bail conditions given him by the agency, Vanguard learned last night.
A source confirmed to the newspaper that the former governor refused to return his international passport, which was given to him to use purely on humanitarian grounds to enable him to travel to Dubai for medical attention last year.
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The source said the former governor also declined to turn him himself in for further questioning over alleged abuse of office upon return from the Arab country, thereby forcing the anti-graft agency to put him on its watch list.
“He has been under investigation over alleged misappropriation of state funds worth N55 billion during his tenure as governor of his state,” an agent said.
“In one leg of the investigation, our operatives are looking at the allegation that Orji received as much as N500 million as security vote monthly while he was governor for eight years while on another plank, the agents are probing the claim that he might have gone away with N55 billion of state funds.
But the EFCC is angry that Senator Orji tried to play a fast one on them by running away with his International passport after he had undertaken to return the travel document as soon as he returned from the UAE last year.
“The former governor is the architect of his own misfortune because he came to us and pleaded for the return of his international passport to enable him to travel for medical attention in Dubai.
“But almost one year after he returned from the medical trip, the former governor has shunned us and pretended as if all was okay,” a source familiar with the matter told Vanguard last night.
“He was picked up by our men at the NAIA Abuja and we have to treat him as someone who has been on our watch list for some time now,” the official explained.
The Spokesman for the EFCC Wilson Uwujaren confirmed the arrest of the Senator but declined to give details.
