House of Representatives Minority Leader, Hon. Leo Ogor, the federal lawmaker championing the much-condemned attempt to amend the Act establishing Nigeria’s most successful company, Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited, has become enmeshed in a N318 million contract scandal.

As a result, Leo Ogor has attracted the attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which has obtained a court order based on which it blocked over N116 million belonging to companies linked to Mr. Ogor.

“The cash is the outstanding sum in the accounts of five of the six companies owned by Ogor with which he secured contracts from some agencies as constituency projects,” according to an exclusive report by The Nation.

The paper said that apart from the freeze order, the EFCC is looking into a “curious” payment of over N318 million to two of the companies by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Incidentally, the NLNG Act, which Mr. Ogor has already succeeded in getting the House of Reps to pass, seeks to compel NLNG to contribute 3% of its annual budget to NDDC, on which Mr. Ogor’s companies have now been revealed to be feeding fat.

EFCC, according to The Nation, is probing Ogor based on a petition against the House leadership by the suspended Appropriation Committee Chairman Abdulmumin Jibrin on alleged padding of 2016 Budget and insertion of bogus constituency projects.

As part of the first stage of the investigation, EFCC detectives discovered that Ogor has 30 accounts, including six belonging to his companies, two dormant savings accounts and the rest personal.

The huge inflows into six of the 30 accounts attracted the EFCC.

The said accounts belong to six companies traceable to Ogor because he is the sole signatory to the accounts.

According to The Nation, “Most of the constituency projects facilitated by Ogor were awarded to the six companies. The companies are: Laurelton Global Services Limited; Zanny Concern Limited; Racen Integrated Global Nigeria Limited; Simplified Concept Limited; Fergio Ventures Nigeria Limited; and Peanard Nigeria Limited.

“Of the six companies, two, Simplified Concept Limited and Laurelton, have Ogor as a serving director.”

The report disclosed that EFCC is investigating Ogor for the following allegations:

*Abuse of office; awarding constituency projects to his companies; contract splitting;

*Being sole signatory to six accounts, which were not declared in his Asset Declaration Form;

*Curious payment of over N318 million into two of the accounts by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for undisclosed projects; and

*Other allegations in Jibrin’s petition.

Based on the allegations, the EFCC approached a Federal High Court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako for the blockage of the accounts of the six companies, succeeding in the request on May 25, 2017.

The judge said: “After hearing I. Audu, counsel for the applicant, it is hereby ordered as follows:

“Leave is granted to the Chairman of the commission or any officer authorised by him to instruct a Bank Examiner to issue an order, as specified in Form B of the schedule to the EFCC Act 2004 to managers of bank or any person having control of the banks where the accounts are, to freeze the accounts shown in the schedule attached to this application for 90 days.

“That an order is hereby made granting power to the chairman of the commission or any officer authorised by him to direct the banks shown in the schedule hereby attached to supply any information and to produce the opening documents to the accounts and the statements of accounts and to stop all outward payments, operations or transactions.”

About N116m was frozen in the accounts of five out of the six companies.

The breakdown is as follows: Laurelton Global Services Limited (N101,149, 293.96); Racen Integrated Global Nigeria Limited(N5,088,293.50); Peanard (N2,370,901.44); Zanny Concern Limited (N8,374,173.28) and Simplified Concept Limited (N7,000).

Approached for comments by The Nation, Ogor described the allegations as a non-issue.

He said: “If it is about Jibrin’s petition, is it not about passing budget padding? If they are investigating budget padding, what is the correlation between budget padding and constituency projects?

“Secondly, I’m not aware of anything but the fact remains that these constituency projects are awarded by these agencies and they go through public procurement process and the essential thing is to go to the constituency and see whether those projects are on ground or not. For me, that is a non-issue.”

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