Health Ministry workers stop police from arresting Perm Sec over N1.9b Ebola Fund fraud

There was drama at the Federal Ministry of health in Abuja on Wednesday, June 10, as officials of the Ministry barred police officers from arresting the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Linus Awute and other top officials of the ministry who are said to be involved in an alleged N1.9 billion Ebola fund embezzlement.

Report said the police officers, who were on mufti, arrived the ministry of health building to effect the arrest of the Perm Sec of the ministry and two others.

According to Vanguard, other officials marked for arrest in connection with the Ebola fund included Chief Executive Officer/National Coordinator of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Professor Abdulsalam Nasidi, Director, Emergency Health Response, John Akintunde Kehinde, and Dr. Joshua Obasanya, team leader of the Nigerian volunteers and deputy head of the ASEOWA mission, who is presently out of the on official assignment.

It was reported that Kehinde was picked up from his office and brought to the third floor with the intention to pick the permanent secretary who was discovered not to be in his office at the time the police arrived. However, Prof. Nasisdi was said to be out of town.

The director however insisted that he was not going to follow them unless the police team obtains permission from his permanent secretary.

The ministry workers were said to have prevented the police from taking him away. They followed the police officers to the car park and blocked their movement.

Vanguard reports that at a point the workers ordered the private security guard to lock the gate so that they would not be able to go out.

While this was going on, John Eleke, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) attached to the Federal Secretariat approached the team from the Police Headquarters and pleaded them to allow the arrest go through a proper channel so as not to give room for chaos.

The police team led by one Inspector Adamu from the Analytical Tracking and Interception unit under the Inspector General of Police (IGP) monitoring team explained that they decided to effect the arrest of the ministry officials because they had refused to honour an earlier invitation for them to come to the station to answer to some allegations.

One Dr. Davidson George, in a fifteen page document, had alleged that the Ministry officials are guilty of fraud and mismanagement of the N1.9billion Ebola fund.

It is believed that the police acted on the allegation by attempting to arrest the officials.

According to the document, which was available to journalists, the procurement of isolation tents, gulped the sum of N900 million.

Also, an expenditure payment voucher dated 11/8/2014 being personal advance granted one Musa A.A, was initiated by Kehinde John Akintunde, for the release of N28,220,000million for the decontamination of First Consultant hospital, Obalende, Lagos.

Nasidi, the document indicated withdrew N63,581,250 million claiming it was meant for pre-departure training of Nigerian volunteers who left the country on December 5th, 2014 for Liberia and Sierra Leon.

However, the document claimed that the African Union Commission paid for all the expenses.

The document also claimed that on 23/12/2014, N30,769,000 million was withdrawn from the Ebola account. The payment was made to Musa A Musa in Abuja and was claimed to be for a treatment research group on Ebola.

A breakdown of the expense, the document showed that Prof. Nasidi whose office is in Asokoro and lives in Abuja collected N250,000 as local running per kilometer.

He also collected N216,000 for airfare for a meeting which held within Nigeria and N375,000 as sitting allowance.