FORMER Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja and some of his cabinet members have been invited for questioning by the Police Special Investigation Unit (SFU) over alleged looting of about N2 billion.
The declaration followed failure of the suspects to report to the investigating team on the appointed date.
Police said they had enough facts on the matter and vowed that they were prepared to recover the public funds and prosecute those found wanting.
However, Ladoja last night described the police action as “suspicious” since, according to him, they know where to get him.
He said on the phone that he was not running from the police and that the police knew his residence and could always come to get him if, indeed, they knew they have a case against him.
“I am in my house,” he said. “If the police call me, I will go.”
The SFU is acting on a petition by the Oyo State Government, signed by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Chief I.A Olakojo.
The petition, The Guardian gathered, is titled, “Sales and fraudulent conversion of proceeds of Oyo State Government shares by the immediate past Administration of Senator Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja.”
In it, the government stated that out of net proceeds of N6,258,748,904.75 accruable to the state, only N4,325,808,872.27 was recovered, giving a deficit of N1,932,940,032.48 “unaccounted for between the government officials and companies listed.”
Already, former commissioner for Commerce and Co-operatives in Oyo State, Mrs. Christiana Abiodun Babalola had been arrested alongside Mr. Yinka Fatoki, who was the deputy director, investment and promotion in the state Ministry of Commerce.
Also arrested by the special police department located at No 13, Milverton Road, Ikoyi, Lagos is Mr. Bolaji Julius Oladele, the director of finance in state Ministry of Finance.
Police said they gave all the suspects till last Friday, September 7 to report at the station but only three persons showed up.
Authorities in the SFU said: “We are looking for the former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja with a view to arrest him.
“We are also looking for the former SSG, Chief Dele Adigun, former Chief of Staff, Chief Sarafadeen Alli, former Commissioner for Finance, Mr. W.A.F Akanbi and Ach. A. Gbadegesin, who was the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Commerce.”
Other people on the Police wanted list are the managing directors of Foundation Securities Limited and Maclaize Trust Limited, the stocks brokering firms through which the suspects allegedly siphoned the money.
In the petition, the Oyo State Government requested the detectives to do the following:
Investigate and determine the level of culpability of the actors in the “shameful and fraudulent melodrama.”
Recover unlawfully and illegally converted sum of N1,932,940,032.48 for and on behalf of Oyo State Government.
Prosecute those who are found liable to serve as deterrence to others in the various public offices.
The Commissioner of Police in-charge of the SFU, Mr. Olayinka Balogun, who is the head of the panel investigating the matter, told The Guardian that: “We have got the facts, we want to ensure that government properties are save. No one, no matter how highly placed, would be allowed to squander it.
“We will make sure those who are liable accounts for the money. Those found criminally liable would be prosecuted. Meanwhile, the investigation continues and the search for the remaining suspects continues.”
A senior officer, who is in the investigation panel, said the police were trying to determine the degree of culpability of the companies the suspects used to trade the shares.
Ladoja, who returned to the country lately, said the manner of the police action on the issue was suspicious, even as he alleged that Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala might be using his links with the police to pursue personal aggrandisement after his petitions to the EFCC and the ICPC were not receiving the kind of response he wanted.
“What Akala wanted to achieve is the newspaper melodrama,” Ladoja said. “There is really nothing in it. They just want to divert the attention of people from the problems facing them.”
The problems, he listed, include the election petitions against Alao-Akala and the labour crisis in Oyo State. “Those are the things haunting them,” he said.
Ladoja insisted that there was nothing in the fraud allegations against his former administration. “They know everybody in Oyo would like to protect me because they all love their governor, who is Ladoja,” he said.
He described the arrest of one of Babalola as illegal, “because they (police) had held her for more than 24 hours.”
“They brought her to Lagos on the understanding that they would release her. But you know the police, they kept her till the weekend on the excuse that Oga is not around. It is just a way of humiliating her,” he said.