Nigeria Today

Some top officials of the Delta State Government are believed to have gone underground as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission continues the search for evidence that could help its investigation into an allegation of graft against former Governor James Ibori.

The officials, said an EFCC source on Wednesday, were mostly heads of some ministries and departments in the oil-rich state.

The source, who pleaded not to be named, did not give the names of the officials. But he told one of our correspondents that the operatives began the search of some ministries and departments in the state on Monday for incriminating materials against Ibori.


He said the operatives ransacked some offices in the Ministry of Finance and the office of the Accountant-General on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The anti-graft agency official made this disclosure shortly after the Nigeria Police Force said that the search for the ex-governor continued.

It was learnt that the detectives had on Monday intimated the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, with their mission in the state.

Our source said that the operatives briefed Okowa of the ministries and departments whose records they intended to examine and the officials they hoped to quiz.

He explained that the operatives pleaded for the cooperation of the state government in making vital documents relating to the alleged fraud against Ibori available to them.

When contacted on the telephone on Wednesday evening by one of our correspondents, the EFCC Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, confirmed that most of Delta officials that the commission planned to interrogate were on the run.

He said, “Most of the top government officials we are looking for in Delta State have gone underground and that is why we are intensifying efforts to locate them wherever they are.”

Babafemi, who declined to give the names of the officials, had earlier said the commission would not bow to sentiment and blackmail by Ibori and his loyalists.