Posted by By Akinloye Adelusi on
The arrest and subsequent arraignment, last Friday, of the former Deputy National Chairman(South) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, stalled the screening of the party's aspirants gunning for chairmanship and councillorship seats in the local governments, ahead of the forthcoming council elections in Lagos State, on 11 October.
The arrest and subsequent arraignment, last Friday, of the former Deputy National Chairman(South) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, stalled the screening of the party's aspirants gunning for chairmanship and councillorship seats in the local governments, ahead of the forthcoming council elections in Lagos State, on 11 October.
Very reliable sources told P.M.News at the weekend, that the aspirants had converged on the party's state secretariat at the Ikeja GRA, in defiance of the early morning rain on Friday, for the exercise, but were directed by the party's leadership in the state to move en masse to the Ikeja High Court premises, where the former Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) Board chairman was to be arraigned by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over an alleged N100 billion fraud perpetrated while on the Board of the NPA.
According to one of the sources, a female councillorship aspirant from Lagos Mainland Local Government who craved anonymity, 'we, the aspirants, had defied the rain and converged on the state secretariat of our party, in readiness for the screening exercise, but we were told that we had to move to the premises of the Ikeja High Court to give our national leader, Chief Bode George, who was arraigned for trial, our solidarity support.'
The screening exercise, however, has been rescheduled for today. Chief George was picked up from his Asokoro, Abuja, home, in the early hours of Thursday 7 August, by operatives of the EFCC and was arraigned the following day before an Ikeja High Court presided over by Justice Olubunmi Oyewole, on a 163-count charge of fraud and alleged involvement in a N100 billion contract, which he allegedly awarded while he was chairman of the NPA Board.
He pleaded not guilty to all the charges. But the court could not hear his bail application and therefore, adjourned till tomorrow, Tuesday 12 August, while he was asked to be remanded in EFCC custody.