Posted by By UBONG UKPONG, Abuja on
Embattled National Coordinator of the Police Equipment Foundation (PEF), Kenny Martins has been arrested by the police, over his alleged role in the N50 billion financial scam rocking the foundation.
Embattled National Coordinator of the Police Equipment Foundation (PEF), Kenny Martins has been arrested by the police, over his alleged role in the N50 billion financial scam rocking the foundation.
Sources close to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) monitoring team disclosed that the PEF boss was nabbed yesterday in a very controversial circumstance.
Daily Sun gathered that soon after Martins and his Secretary, Ibrahim Dumuje, were arrested, they were quickly moved to the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), where they were being detained.
Sources closed to the FCID told Daily Sun that the police fund raisers would continue to cool off in police net until June 4, 2008, when their trial before an Abuja Chief Magistrate Court comes up.
An Abuja Chief Magistrate Court, it would be recalled, had last Wednesday, granted an application for a bench warrant, to arrest Kenny Martins and Dumuje, sequel to the report from the police prosecution, led by Stanley Nwodo, that they were invading arrest.
Only the two lawyers, Joni Icheka and Cosmos Okpara, charged alongside Martins and Dumuje, were in court to take their pleas. They pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against them.
Martins, Dumuje and the two lawyers are facing trial at the court on a two-count charge of criminal conspiracy and forgery.
They were alleged to have conspired together to commit a felony to wit: forge documents relating to Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), which is punishable under section96 (1) of the Penal Code, Cap 532 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 1990 (Abuja).
They were also said to have forged form CAC7 of NIGERS ALG LIMITED with the intent to defraud the Police Equipment Fund, which is punishable under Section 364 of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 (Abuja).
The arrest came at a time Kenny Martins accused the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mike Okiro, of asking him to give N10 million and a Jeep to a Lagos based lawyer, Festus Keyamo and a former member of the PEF, Godson Ewulum, a request he was reported to have obliged.
However, in a swift reaction, the IGP, at a press conference yesterday denied, saying neither him nor the Force had any business in the alleged dirty deals of Martins.
He advised Martins 'to uphold the truth at all times and tell Nigerians how he managed the Fund of the foundation rather than attempt to drag the Nigeria Police Force and its good name into his case before the court."