The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday re – arrested the former governor of Imo State, Achike Udenwa, in connection with alleged campaign scandal at the last presidential election.
Udenwa, who was a state co-ordinator for The Presidential Campaign Organisation in Imo State, was alleged to have collected the sum of N350,000,000 million from the former senator representing Kaduna South and Director of Finance for the PDP presidential campaign organisation, Nenadi Usman.
According to a statement released on the agency’s official facebook account – Official EFCC, it stated that “the suspect, in his statement to the Commission, admitted receiving the money through a Diamond Bank account No. 0058805692 and 005950791 respectively on the 14th and 28th of January 2015 in three separate instalments.”
Udenwa also added that “the money came from a company named Joint Trust Dimension Limited. This same company was charged alongside Mrs Nenadi Usman and the Media Director of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani Kayode, before Federal High Court, Lagos on a similar allegation.”
According to the agency’s account, investigation however revealed that Achike Udenwa and one Viola Onwuliri, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and State Minister for Education, who was his deputy at the Presidential Campaign Organisation, were the two signatories to the Diamond Bank account that received the money.
Upon his arrest, Udenwa was immediately granted administrative bail by the commission with condition that he should be reporting to the commission at an appointed time. But while enjoying his administrative bail, Udenwa chose to deliberately skip reporting, thereby compelling the commission to revoke his administrative bail pending his arraignment soon.
Achike Udenwa was a governor of Imo State under the flagship of Peoples Democratic Party between 1999 and 2007 and became a minister of Commerce and Industry between 2008 and 2010 under Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.