Ex-public servants convicted for breach of rural electrification projects
Five former management staff of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) have been sentenced to eight years imprisonment for conspiracy and criminal breach of contract in the award of rural electrification projects in 2008.
Former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of REA, Samuel Gekpe was convicted alongside Simon Nanle, Lawrence Orekoya, Abdulsaman Jahun, all former directors and the agency’s former head of legal, Kayode Oyedeji, for violating aspects of the Public Procurements Act (PPA) in the award of the contracts.
Justice Adebukola Banjoko, held that the law mandated REA to advertise before awarding the contracts, but this was not done, with the eventual award of the contracts based on criteria known only to the first defendant.
The judge held that Nanle, Orekoya, Jahun and Oyedeji’s liability came with their signing without questioning of the ‘No Objection’ certificate which ensured the funds of REA was moved from its account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay the contractors without following the provisions of the PPA.
Justice Banjoko held that Gekpe’s liability came with him succumbing to the pressure and bidding of some committee members of the National Assembly, who instituted the projects as constituency projects, gave him list of contractors and pressured him to act outside the provisions of the PPA because of their oversight on REA.
She held that there was no evidence that the convicts personally benefited from the contracts nor was there any evidence to prove that they have interests in any of the companies awarded the contracts.
After taking the convicts’ allocutus, the court sentenced Gekpe to three years imprisonment for each count with an option of N5million as fine and sentenced Nanle, Orekoya, Jahun and Oyedeji to one year imprisonment for each count with an option of N500,000 fine. They were all released to go home on the personal undertaking of their lawyers after the court gave them 1 month to pay the fine or go to jail.