Part 2: VIP ex-convicts still on national honours list Presidential directive on George, Ibru, others igno
The names of a former National Deputy Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Bode George, and other ex-convicts, are still on the national honours list, The PUNCH has learnt.
Other prominent convicts whose names are on the list are a former Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun; ex-Managing Director of Oceanic Bank, Cecilia Ibru; her former counterpart in the defunct Intercontinental Bank, Erastus Akingbola; and other ex-managing directors of banks convicted after they were conferred with the national honours.
President Goodluck Jonathan during the 2012 national honours awards in Abuja in September had said that he had directed the national honours award committee to withdraw the awards from awardees who had been convicted or undergoing criminal trial.
Investigation by The PUNCH showed that the committee had not been able to meet to carry out Jonathan’s order.
It was also gathered that 21 recipients of the 2010 and 2011 National Honours awardees had yet to receive their medals more than one year after they were conferred with the awards.
Eighty per cent of the awardees came from the public sector as either public officers or political appointees.
Already, the Special Duties Office in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation had concluded arrangement to use its 21 members of staff, preferably those from recipients’ home states to take the medals personally to them.
A senior government official told our correspondent on Sunday in Abuja that the members of the national honours award committee had not been able to meet due to “some logistic factors.”
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