Since June 20 when the Delta State Government initiated a process of resolving consulting firm Peritum Pro’s complaint against Peter Odili, an executive assistant to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori who dubiously replaced the company with his in a contract deal, it has gone silent.
FIJ had detailed Odili’s unlawful action in a May 25 report. Peritum Pro had got the governor’s approval in December to execute a social protection training project for the Ministry of Economic Planning and it was awaiting official mobilisation when its management discovered that Odili had, in connivance with some staff of the ministry, substituted the company with a proxy entity.
Following FIJ’s publication, the state government expressed willingness to investigate the matter through Johnson Erijo, the chief of staff to the governor.
READ MORE: Paul Odili, Delta Gov’s EA, Dubiously Replaced Company for World Bank Project. He Tried to Cover His Tracks
Ifeanyi Mok, Erijo’s special assistant, transmitted a June 20 invitation letter for an in-person meeting scheduled to occur on June 24 in Asaba to the company and its lawyers at law office Primus.
In a response on June 25, Peritum Pro’s lawyer Obasi Nwabueze requested that the meeting be held virtually to avoid unnecessary costs and for safety concerns.
“Regrettably, however, we (our client and ourselves) are unable to attend a physical meeting at this time, and hereby crave your gracious indulgence for an online meeting, via any of the video conferencing applications – ‘Zoom’, ‘Microsoft Teams’, and such like,” Nwabueze wrote in the letter.
“Aside [from] the huge expense the logistics of a physical Meeting would entail, our client’s Management decided against the physical Meeting on account of genuine concerns for the safety of it’s Managing Director, in view of the various threats she had received since this saga broke.
“With humility therefore, we earnestly entreat the Office of the Chief of Staff (and, by extension, His Excellency, the Governor of Delta State) to reconsider the meeting format, and permit a video conference, to enable us all explore the soonest non-adversarial resolution of this matter.”
Almost two months after receiving this request, the government has gone mute.
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“Since we made that request for an adjustment to the meeting format, no response has been received from Delta State Government,” Nwabueze told FIJ on Wednesday.
“I spoke to Mok about three weeks ago. He complained about our client’s refusal to come to Asaba. I also told him our reasons (logistics), but concluded that he would go and convince his people to let us have the Zoom Meeting.”
When reached for comment on this story on Wednesday, Mok told FIJ that “going to the media is ill-advised”.
“I spoke to their lawyer and offered candid advice,” Mok said. “We are trying to resolve the matter and they are going back to this route they had travelled before. If they think that going to the media will move the process, you better tell them that it doesn’t work.
“I told their lawyer that I was going to get back to him. If he had not heard anything from me, the onus is on him to call me back to know if there is any update.”
The post Oborevwori’s Chief of Staff Silent 2 Months After Committing to Investigate Gov’s Aide Paul Odili for Project Fraud appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.