By Abiola Olawale
The Enugu State chapter of the Labour Party (LP) has raised an alarm, accusing the State Governor, Peter Mbah of allegedly plotting to use certain companies to act as fronts for siphoning the resources of the state.
The opposition party which urged anti-corruption agencies in the country to immediately launch a probe into the details of an agriculture partnership agreement recently signed between the Enugu State Government and Pragmatic Farms Limited, alleged that the project is a smokescreen.
The party, in a statement on Sunday signed by its Chairman, Comrade Casimir Uchenna Agbo, and Publicity Secretary, Onuora Odo, alleged that Mbah has perfected plans to divert the state’s resources as he signed an agreement with a company that is purportedly four days old.
The New Diplomat reports that the Enugu State Government recently entered a N100 billion partnership deal with Pragmatic Farms Limited.
The state government in a statement said that the deal was in continuation of the bid by Mbah to revive and convert Enugu State’s dormant assets to productive assets.
However, the Labour Party in its statement issued on Sunday wondered why the state government would give a company registered only four days ago such an enormous deal.
The party queried the track record of the company to be considered the best fit for the job. The party also demanded that the governor of Enugu State should tell the people when discussions on this partnership began and how he concluded and signed the deal within four days of incorporating the company.
The statement reads in part: “We are raising this alarm because the entire project smells of large-scale fraud and as a responsible and responsive political party, we owe it to the people of the state, the duty of drawing their attention to what we see as economic rape and corrupt tendencies. Checks at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) have created a cloud of suspicion around the project, following our discovery that Pragmatic Palms Limited was registered only on May 6, 2024, four days before the partnership agreement was signed with the Enugu State Government on May 10, 2024.
“It is important to also draw the attention of the people of Enugu State, the Federal Government of Nigeria, and the anticorruption agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to what looks like a grand plan to divert the resources of Enugu State through what looks like a conduit. We say this because further checks reveal that Pragmatic Palms Limited was referenced in the news items as a subsidiary of another company known as Diamond Stripes Limited, a business owned by one Prof George Nwangwu and his wife. How the Enugu State Government decided to trust N100 billion belonging to the over-taxed and deprived people of the state to a glorified sole proprietorship is something that has to be explained,” Enugu LP said in the statement.
“Diamond Stripes Limited, it is also worth highlighting, started business in 2013 and has its capacities in the area of hydroelectric generation and port management. Nowhere, on its website was its capacity for agriculture and agro-processing mentioned. More worrisome is the fact that the owner of the company, Prof George Nwangwu has no known track record in agriculture and related areas. We even went further to explore the search engine and the George Nwangwu we were able to find is a professor of Law and has never been involved in anything relating to agriculture before the N100 billion deal he reached with the Government of Enugu State.
“We are worried because a lot of things in the transaction do not appear straightforward. First, by sheer stroke of coincidence, Pragmatic Palms Limited’s registered office located at 5 Kokoma Close, Wuse II, Abuja, appeared in our search to be the same as that of a Law firm, Ratio Legal Practitioners LLP, which also processed the registration of Pragmatic Palms Limited.
“It is also worrisome that although Pragmatic Palms Limited was mentioned in the press release as a subsidiary of Diamond Stripes Limited, there was no indication that Diamond Stripes is a shareholder in Pragmatic Palms Limited. The only shareholder that was returned in the search is a certain George Nwangwu, who curiously owns the entire one million shares of the company.
“We are also worried that while on its website, Diamond Stripes Limited claimed it was in the business of electricity generation, ports services and the building of silos, data on its registration documents at the Corporate Affairs Commission indicated that it was registered “to carry on the business of the manufacturer, importation, exportation, distribution, promotion, sales, supply and marketing of all types of products, materials, agents, reagents and equipment to engage in the business of real estate and property.” The suspicion heightens given that the CAC no longer permits the registration and operation of omnibus businesses in Nigeria.
“We are therefore calling on the good people of Enugu State to be vigilant. We also invite the anticorruption agencies to investigate this transaction with a view to saving the people of Enugu State from what looks like a bogus transaction designed to facilitate the diversion of money belonging to the people.”
