THISDAY has learnt that the Economic and Fina-ncial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may arrest Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the controversial daughter of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, any moment from now over her role in the sharing of N300 million unspent 2007 budget of the Ministry of Health.
Also, as Senate resumes this morning, there are strong hints that the Health Ministry scam to which the Senate Committee on Health was linked will be visited in plenary.
A senior EFCC source said yesterday that President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua was not unaware of what the EFCC operatives described as the �arrogance� of Senator Obasanjo-Bello and her brazen attitude in thwarting efforts at getting to the bottom of the matter as well as the anti-corruption agency�s decision to arrest her.
Although, she has owned up to receiving N10 million from the fund on behalf of her committee, she was said to have refused to return the money as directed by the anti-corruption agency and equally refused to make herself available to the EFCC in line with the undertaking she entered into with the body after initial interrogation.
However, members of the House Committee on Health which also benefited from the �unspent funds� scandal returned their share as soon as the matter became a scandal.
�In line with its stand on such issues, the Presidency will not interfere in the EFCC�s handling of the matter. What the President preaches is adherence to rule of law. It is in the place of the anti-corruption body and not the Presidency to investigate corruption cases,� the source stated.
The EFCC had swung into action as soon as it received the petition on the flouting of the presidential directive on the return of all unspent 2007 budget funds to government coffers.
The scandal has already led to the resignations of the former Minister of Health, Prof. Adenike Grange and her Minister of State, Chief Gabriel Aduku, while top officials of the ministry were suspended indefinitely.
A motion on Obasanjo-Bello�s case, THISDAY was told, would be moved on the floor to seek the leave of the Senate to direct the Senate Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petition under the Chairmanship of Senator Omar Hambagda to investigate the Health Committee�s involvement.
Already Obasanjo-Bello who collected and managed the fund on behalf of the Committee members has been grilled by the EFCC.
Iyabo-Obasanjo and 10 other members of the Health Committee that went to Ghana would appear before the Ethics Committee to give evidence.
Only two members of the Health Committee, Senators George Akume and Chimaroke Nnamani who did not go to Ghana, would be spared of the Ethics Committee�s inquisition.
Vice-Chairman of the Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions Committee, Senator Adego Efarekaya, who is also a member of the Health Committee, will be disqualified from sitting in judgment over an issue in which he is involved.
Efarekaya was one of the eleven Senate Health Committee members that went to Ghana.
He was quoted in the media at the weekend to have said: �I do not know who funded the trip. I know they paid for my accommodation; they paid for my feeding; they paid for my transport and all that. Nobody gave me cash as far as I know. It is now we heard of the problem with the Health Ministry and the N10 million. Only the Chairman (Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello) can explain that.�
Apr82008