ABUJA – The officials of the Federal Ministry of health, yesterday in Abuja prevented 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 the alleged embezzlement of N1.9 billion Ebola fund.Vanguard findings showed that the plain cloth police officers arrived the ministry of health building to effect the arrest of the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mr. Linus Awute and two others.
Reliable sources disclosed to Vanguard in Abuja, that other officials penciled down for the arrest in connection with the Ebola fund included Chief Executive Officer/National Coordinator of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Prof. Abdulsalam Nasidi, Mr.John Akintunde Kehinde, Director, Emergency Health Response and one Dr. Joshua Obasanya, team leader of the Nigerian volunteers and deputy head of the ASEOWA mission Obasanya is out of the country on official assignment.
Mr. 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.
As the drama began to unfold, Mr. Kehinde insisted that he was not going to follow them unless the police team obtained permission from his permanent secretary.
Workers of the ministry however prevented the police from whisking him away as they followed them to the car pack and also blocked their movement.
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, Mr. John Eleke, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) attached to the Federal Secretariat approached the team from the Police Headquarters and pleaded that 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.
The police team, Vanguard findings showed that is acting on allegations filled against these officers by one Dr. Davidson George which bothered on fraud and mismanagement of the N1.9billion ebola fund.
A fifteen page document obtain by reporters gives a complete breakdown of how the amount which said to be spent.
According to the document, the procurement of isolation tents, gulp 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 Mr. Kehinde John Akintunde, Director, Environmental Health, head of health emergency response and disaster 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.
