Edo State governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, has announced that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will prosecute the recently impeached local government chairmen implicated in the alleged misappropriation of over N95 billion public funds.
He stated that the indicted officials were named in the findings of an Administrative Panel of Enquiry, which was tasked with investigating financial activities in local government councils between September 4, 2023, and November 2024.
Speaking in Benin after receiving the panel’s report, Governor Okpebholo vowed to formally petition the EFCC to take immediate action.
He emphasised that in addition to the indicted local government chairmen, former Governor Godwin Obaseki and leaders of a faction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) were also implicated.
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He further assured that those responsible would be held accountable.
Obaseki dismissed the allegations as a politically motivated attempt by Okpebholo to justify what he described as an unconstitutional move against duly elected council chairmen.
Speaking through his aide, Crusoe Osagie, Obaseki said Okpebholo had no legal authority to supervise local government operations or initiate investigations against elected officials.
He urged the people of Edo State and Nigerians at large to disregard what he called falsehoods propagated by Okpebholo’s administration, asserting that his tenure was the most transparent in the state’s history.
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