Police Moves to Arrest Perm Sec., Others Over N1.9Bn Ebola Fund

Officials of the Federal Ministry of Health, yesterday in Abuja, prevented Policemen from arresting Linus Awute, permanent secretary and other top officials of the Ministry over the management of the N1.9 billion Ebola fund.
Daily Independent findings showed that the plain clothe Policemen arrived the ministry’s premises at about 1pm to arrest Awute and two others.

The other officials  pencilled down for the arrest in connection with the Ebola fund included Prof. Abdulsalam Nasidi, Chief Executive Officer/National Coordinator of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC); Mr. John Akintunde  Kehinde, Director, Emergency Health Response; and one  Dr. Joshua Obasanya, team leader of the Nigerian Volunteers and Deputy Head of the ASEOWA Mission. Obasanya is out of the country on official assignment, just like Prof Nasisdi.
Kehinde was picked from his office and brought to the third floor with the intention to arrest the Perm Sec, who was not in his office at the time. 
As the drama began to unfold, Kehinde insisted that he was not going to follow them unless the Police team obtained permission from his boss.
Workers of the Ministry however prevented the Policemen from whisking him away as they followed them to the car park and also blocked their movement.
At a point, the workers ordered the private security guards to lock the gates.
While this was going on, Mr. John Eleke, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) attached to the Federal Secretariat approached the team from the Police Headquarters and pleaded that they allow the arrest go through a proper channel  so as not to give room for chaos.
The police team led by one Inspector Adamu from the Analytical Tracking and Interception unit under the Inspector General of Police (IGP) monitoring team,  accused the officials of refusing to honour an earlier invitation to answer to some allegations.
The police team, Daily Independent findings showed, is acting on allegations filled against the officials by Dr. Davidson George, which bothered on fraud and mismanagement of the N1.9 billion ebola fund.
A 15-paged document obtain by reporters gives a complete breakdown of how the amount which was said to have been  spent.
According to the document, the procurement of isolation tents, gulp the sum of N900 million.
Also, an expenditure payment voucher dated 11/8/2014 being personal advance granted one Musa A.A, was initiated by Mr. Kehinde John Akintunde, Director, Environmental Health, head of health emergency response and disaster for the release of N28.22 million for the decontamination of First Consultant hospital, Obalende, Lagos.
Nasidi, the document indicated, withdrew N63,581,250 claiming it was meant for pre-departure training of Nigerian volunteers who left the country on December 5th, 2014 for Liberia and Sierra Leon.
However, the document claimed that the African Union Commission paid for all the expenses.
The document also claimed that on 23/12/2014, N30,769,000 million  was withdrawn from the Ebola account.
The payment was made to Musa A Musa in Abuja and was claimed to be for a treatment research group on Ebola.
A breakdown of the expense, showed that Prof. Nasidi collected N250,000 as local running per kilometer. He also collected N216,000 for airfare for a meeting which held within Nigeria and N375,000 as sitting allowance.