One of Nigeria’s foremost celebrities, Onyeka Onwenu, has been accused of demanding and collecting kickbacks through her personal assistant, Chika Abazu, from a contractor employed to carry out renovation works at the National Centre for Women Development [NCWD], where she is director general.
Premium Times reports that the accusation was levelled by Joseph Nwakama, an architect with Solidmark Associates Limited, the company employed by the Centre to carry out the renovation of its guest house.
However, although it was established by investigators from the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, that Mr. Abazu indeed demanded and received a total of N17 million bribe from the contractor, no direct evidence has so far linked Ms. Onwenu to the offence.
So, it was Mr. Abazu who was on July 10 arraigned before a Federal Capital Territory High Court on a six-count charge of bribery and gratification.
The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges but was denied bail and ordered remanded in the Federal Prisons, Kuje, until the case is dispensed with.
The presiding judge, Justice Chukwu Ndukwe, adjourned the case till September 28 for trial to commence.
Although investigators could not directly link Ms. Onwenu to bribetaking, documents obtained by the icirnigeria.org revealed so many wrongdoings by the Centre’s management under her watch, including funding the Solidmark contract with money taken from a Women Empowerment Programme in Zamfara State and spending more than was budgeted for the project. That is apart from paying the contractor even before he was officially awarded the contract.
