Men of the Nigerian police from the Zone 5 Police Command in Benin-city have arrested a staff of the Warri North council over his refusal to release a Toyota Hilux truck said to have been purchased during the much vilified auction of the council’s vehicles. The auto auction has been described as unfortunate and retrogressive. The staff (name withheld) who was held in police custody in Benin for two days denied any wrongdoing. In a statement he made to the police, he claimed that he had applied to purchase the hilux without any objection from the HMP, but that the HMP went behind to influence the auctioneer to issue clearance to one Paul Eje who, from information that was made available to this magazine was a close associate of the HPM, Mr. Akambe.
Mr. Akambe was also accused of using the auctioneer to acquire other council’s properties behind the veils. One of such properties which council staff were still lamenting over its loss was a large caterpillar electric generating set. At the time of filing in this report, the KVA capacity of the generating set could not be ascertained. The generator was to the chagrin of all sold to Mr. Akambe for N100, 000, (one hundred thousand naira). Sources disclosed that the recurrent market value of the generator was between N10 Million to N15 Million.The arrested council staff further disclosed that the HMP did not frown at the in house arrangement that staff may buy cars attached to them. Hence, he was encouraged to conclude payment for the hilux like every other purchaser. When asked how much he paid into the council’s treasury as cost for the hilux, he disclosed that the two hilux vehicles auctioned on the said date were sold for N250,000 ( Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira ) each.
The detained council staff who has since been released on bail further revealed that the said Toyota Hilux was attached to the department of works where he works as a technical officer, and that he had applied and bought the hilux like the HMP, TLG, SLG and other principal officers who applied and bought vehicles attached to them. Problem started when the HPM, Mr. Akambe allegedly instructed the auctioneer to revert the sales of the hilux in his favour. The staff who already had the hilux in his possession refused to surrender the hilux to the HPM nor accept a refund of the sum of N250,000 which he had already paid into the council treasury being the cost of the hilux. Our sources also disclosed that Mr. Akambe was responsible for the arrest of the staff with the intention of intimidating the latter to releasing the said hilux truck to him.
Our sources disclosed that the HPM had denied any connection with the arrest of the council staff. All effort to get across to Mr. Akambe in order to hear his own side of the story was fruitless. Another staff of the council who spoke to the reporter under anonymity accused Mr. Akambe of having masterminded the arrest of the staff because he was interested in the purchase of the hilux after purchasing two other toyota corolla cars, a commuter bus and his official car which he also bought at the cost of N400,000 ( four hundred thousand naira). The HMP’s official car, a toyota corolla was purchased in 2012, and described to be in a perfect condition at the time the scam of an auction was conducted, a source told this magazine. It was also alleged that Mr. Akambe was the brain behind the illegal auction of the council vehicles and other properties. The source blamed chief Francise Maku, the immediate past chairman of the council for sheepishly falling for the infamous decision to auction all council’s vehicles. The source lamented that the auto auction had paralyzed official routines in the council as there was hardly any official vehicle left to carry out official assignments in the Koko secretariat of the council.
The illegal auction has also perverted the embattled HPM against one of the supervisory councilors who purchased one of the auctioned toyota corolla vehicles and refused to pay up. Most of the broken down toyota corolla with one minor fault or the other were sold for N150,000 (One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira only)
