By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
The Unified Nigerian Youth Forum (UNYF), has petitioned security agencies to immediately arrest and prosecute Chief Athan Achonu and his company “Mathan Nigeria Limited” for alleged fraudulently receiving N57bn to construct 774 comprehensive primary health centres in the country.
The said amount was alleged to have been collected from the account of the local governments in Nigeria on the pretence that he was going to construct 774 comprehensive primary health centres in the 774 local governments in Nigeria.
Briefing newsmen in Kaduna yesterday, Ali Muhammadu, the forum’s Publicity Secretary said through a letter to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), saying, “Sometime in 2006, the Federal Government of NIGERIA awarded a contract of N37bn to Chief ATHAN ACHONU, who is also a former Senator, for the building and equipping of 774 comprehensive primary healthcare centres across Nigeria.
“The health centres were to be located, one each, at the 774 local government areas in the country. Indeed, the money was polled by the local governments’ allocation and paid to ACHONU’s company, MATHAN NIGERIA LIMITED through the defunct Bank PHB.”
He explained that seventeen years after he received payment fully for the execution of the contract, Chief Athan Achonu has not completed the job, alleging that he abandoned the contract for which he received the initial payment of N37B.
He stated that since 2006, when the contract was awarded, only 263 of the 774 health centres have been built and equipped with 510 health centres yet to be built.
According to him, even with the non execution of the said contract, Athan Achonu and his company, MATHAN, recently obtained a court order for the variation of the contract upwards, to the tune of N20bn, lamenting that with this court order, Athan Achonu now drew money meant for local government areas directly from the federation allocation account, in spite of stiff opposition from the Association of Local governments of Nigeria,(ALGON).
He also alleged that Athan Achonu and Mathan Nigeria Limited is going all out to defraud the government and people of Nigeria through a contract award that was never intended for honest execution, saying that the duo set out from the onset to defraud the government and people of Nigeria.
The Publicity Secretary said that the arrest and speedy trial of Achonu and Co. would serve as a deterrent to unconscionable Nigerians who want to dance over the graves of the poor to achieve he called “their vaulting ambition.”
