Former Governor of Abia State, Theodore Orji, has said that his security vote was 410m per month.
That was between 2008 and 2015.
In 2007, however, the vote was N370m.
The information is par the details that Orji allegedly gave the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, as reported by ‘The Nation’.
According to the report, he said the totalamount he got for security votes was N38.8b, which, he said, he exhausted while in office.
The story adds:
He said he collected N38.8billion as security votes during the period and not N48billion as alleged by the EFCC.
Orji, who is currently representing Abia Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, said he shared much of the N38billion with members of the state House of Assembly, his security informants and traditional rulers.
He claimed to have also given part of the money to military units, the police,the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and security agencies as what he called statutory allocations.
In a tell-it-all statement to his interrogators,the former governor said he gave successive members of the State House of Assembly N5. 760billion, at N60million per month, in the eight years.
He also claimed to have paid N75million monthly to security informants in 15 of the 17 local government areas of the state within the same period.
The yet-to-be identified informants allegedly pocketed a total of N7.200 billion between 2007 and 2015.
Some of the security agencies,according to him, received N2million per month.
However, he told the interrogators that he does not have a comprehensive list of all the beneficiaries of the largesse because the Government House staff who used to disburse the cash is no more.
He gave the man’s name simply as Felix.
Orji said he did not ask for the list from Felix at the expiration of his tenure as governor.
He only issued directives to Felix on how to share the security votes.
He also said he never collected cash either from the Director of Finance or the Cashier in Government House.
The EFCC insists that Orji collected N48billion in eight years.
It has retrieved five huge bags of documents from the relevant desks in Abia State on the ex-governor’s financial transactions.
Based on Orji’s confessions, the EFCC is expected to arraign him in court soon being in what a source described as “a straightforward case.”
The Nation gathered that the former governor made the revelations during a session on oath in the presence of his lawyer, who he referred to as Edmund.
It was the first time Orji would open up after many years of trying to make him respond to allegations against him.
Orji said he received “N370million monthly as security votes in 2007 and N410million monthly from 2008 to 2015.”
He said from the “time I resumed office and left, the funds were distributed in cash. There are also statutory funds to the security agencies.”
