ABUJA — As the trial of fuel marketers indicted in the subsidy scam got underway, the Police Special Anti-Fraud Unit is said to have confronted the suspects with hard evidence.
As learnt, leading police prosecutors were said to have been assembled by the police for water-tight cases against the marketers who were said to have become jittery and now resorting to a media campaign to launder themselves.
Mr
Oluwaseun Ogunbambo with Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s
(EFCC) officials during the arraignments of the fuel subsidy scam
suspects at Ikeja High court, Lagos., yesterday. Photo: Diran Oshe.
The documents they presented in their claims are there for everyone to see and we are fully prepared to face them in the law courts”, a member of the police team said.
According to him, the claims upon which huge subsidy payments were made to them have been punctured because some of mother vessels they claimed they used in importing fuel were not anywhere near the Nigeria waters on the days they were claimed to have brought in fuel.
“They were brazen because they never imagined that anyone would ever audit the subsidy regime. Those claiming to be innocent should come to the court and prove it”, a member of the team said.
He said that the police team was fully aware of their strategy to resort to a media campaign but that it would not succeed because the Nigerian public knows too well that a lot of corruption was going on in the fuel subsidy system until early this year when the President Goodluck Jonathan administration decided to probe it.
CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had opened told a Lagos audience, while campaign for the removal of subsidy early this year that it was found that some ships even brought fuel to Nigerians waters only to divert elsewhere after they were recorde to have delivered supplies.
