Senator representing the FCT in the 10th National Assembly, Ireti Kingibe, has been dragged to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for allegedly collecting N100 million to facilitate a nonexistent Federal Government’s contract.
In a petition to the Office of the ICPC chairman, and dated April, 27, a lawyer, Elochukwu Obi, disclosed that sometime in October 2024, his client, Mr. Nonso Okafor, was lured into paying $65,000 (equivalent of N118,000,000, at that time), to Senator Kingibe, the current Senator representing the FCT at the Senate.
He explained that his client made the payment following intense persuasion exerted on him by Mr. Osereme Christian Omofoma, the Senior Legislative Aide (SLA), to Senator Kingibe.
He added: “Christian approached our client pleading with him to help him raise $100,000 for the Senator to enable her to meet urgent financial needs. The SLA promised that the money would be repaid in full or in the alternative, the Senator will facilitate the award of contracts to our client through which he would recoup the money.
“Initially, our client did not want to be part of the arrangement, especially as he did not have the huge amount of money that was demanded at that time. But, as a result of the enormous pressure exerted on our client by the SLA, our client was forced into borrowing from friends in order to meet up with the cash demand.
“At the end, our client was able to raise $65,000, out of the $100,000 that was initially demanded and this was borrowed at exorbitant interest rates. The money was paid to Senator Kingibe in two tranches in October, 2024, while the contract award promised to him was expected to come within a few weeks from the date of payment. After the payment, our client futilely waited far beyond the envisaged timeframe for the promised contracts, but nothing materialised.
“After several months of waiting in vain, it dawned on our client that there was no contract for him and that he had simply been misled. At this juncture, he began to ask for the refund of his money.
“The Senator not only refused to refund the money, but she also began to actively claim that she did not receive any money from our client. Undeterred, our client continued to ask for the refund of his money through the SLA after it became impossible for him to communicate directly with the Senator.
“Upon our client’s expression of his determination to get the law enforcement involved in the matter, they reluctantly decided to unilaterally pay only N50,000,000, out of the total $65,000 (N118,000,000). The payment was made in May, 2025. After this, Senator Kingibe and her aide tried to compel our client to accept the payment as full and final, with threats to arrest him if he refuses to forgo the balance.
“Despite the threats, our client continued to peacefully press for the completion of his money, which remains N68,000,000. All subsequent appeals for the payment fell on deaf ears.
“Our client believes that the attitudes of Senator Kingibe and her SLA so far have been dodgy, deceptive and geared towards defrauding him of his money by leveraging on the shield provided by high governmental positions.
“Our client also believes that there were no contracts for the Senator to facilitate in the first place. On the contrary, the facilitation of contract was a deceitful gimmick which was deployed to fraudulently collect money from him, without any intention of refunding the same. It is against the above backdrop that we bring this petition to the attention of the ICPC.”
He pleaded with the ICPC chairman to urgently intervene in the matter and ask his officers to investigate the matter in order to determine whether there has been criminal infractions and abuse of public office.
He specifically pleaded for the recovery of the outstanding N68 million, which, according to him, was deceitfully collected from his client and wrongfully retained by Senator Kingibe.
Credit: The Sun