Andy Uba petitions IGP over alleged extortion, blackmail

Senator representing An­ambra South Senatori­al District, Senator Andy Uba, has petitioned the In­spector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Ibrahim Idris over alleged attempts by one Victor Uwajeh to extort huge sums of money from him.

In the petition dated 7th April, 2017, Uba, who doubles as the Chairman, Senate Com­mittee on Public Accounts, accused Uwajeh of serial at­tempts to blackmail him with intention to obtain huge sums of money from him.

Captioned: “Serial At­tempts by Mr. Victor Uwajeh to Blackmail and Extort Mon­ey from Me,” the senator told the police boss that, having failed in the scheme, “Mr. Vic­tor Uwajeh may have resort­ed to targeting my reputation, my career and my life through the spread of scandalous false­hood about my person.”

Uba said he first met Uwa­jeh during his stint at the Pres­idential Villa as Presidential Assistant, but became wary when the latter began to boast that he was an undercover agent who had the dossiers of high ranking “politically ex­posed persons.”

According to the senator, the testimonies of top office holders on Uwajeh, includ­ing those of the then chair­man of the Economic and Fi­nancial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri and the Late Prof. Dora Aku­nyili, further made him stop yielding to the several financial demands of the self-styled un­dercover agent.

Wrote the Senator, “My interest was piqued when he made serious claims about how he was an undercov­er agent first for the MI5 and British government and then for the EFCC under Mrs Fari­da Waziri. His claims that he had dossiers on all political­ly exposed persons in Nigeria raised certain flags. My wor­ry heightened when Mr. Uwa­jeh tried to use me as a con­duit to the so called politically exposed persons into parting huge sums of money in ex­change for destroying what information he had on them.

“As I stopped all communi­cation with Mr. Uwajeh, his tel­ephone calls and text messages even became more desperate and threatening. He would go between pleading for finan­cial help to threatening in des­peration. These text messages were sent vide mobile tele­phone number 0705155518 and +447424924346. These messages remain available for verification should the need arise.”

Uba continued: “The char­acter of Mr. Victor Uwajeh is not in question as there have been very strong allegations of similar nature against this man. The same allegations I make today have been made by late Prof. Dora Akunyili, Mrs. Farida Waziri, Mrs. Ce­cilia Ibru amongst others.

“Mr. IGP, to buttress my point, I will quote Mr. Femi Babafemi (who was the spokesperson of the EFCC at the time) who had this to say of Mr. Uwajeh: ‘Faced with the consequence of his dubi­ous actions, Uwajeh have left no one in doubt that he one in doubt that he will be all out to seek means of blackmailing the EFCC and its leadership’”.

Senator Uba urged the po­lice boss to treat his petition “with your characteristic ur­gency and meticulousness.”-The Authority