Stella Oduah has no such housemaid: SEAIL
Former Minister of Aviation and senator (PDP-Anambra North), Stella Oduah, has denied reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was on her trail for allegedly stashing nearly N2.5 billion in a bank account she set up using the identity of her domestic aide.
Also, a group known as the South East Association of Igbo Ladies vouched for Oduah, saying that she had no no female housemaid a claimed in the report..
Reports in the media said the EFCC had discovered the sum of N2.5bn in an account opened in the name of an unnamed housemaid of the Senator.
The Group made the claim in a statement made available to reporters on Tuesday.
The ladies only reaffirmed the position of Ms. Oduah, who said she received the reports while relaxing in her country home in Anambra State, challenged those who published the allegations to publish proofs that substantiate her guilt.
News website, SaharaReporters, had on Sunday reported EFCC sources as revealing to it how Ms. Oduah used the name and pictures of the unnamed maid to set up the account.
“Senator Oduah apparently opened the account with her housemaid’s name, image, and details without the housemaid knowing about it,” Sahara Reporters quoted one of the EFCC sources as saying.
The account, the report said, was still active as at last week.
Ms. Oduah in a rebuttal said the reports were “totally false, baseless and at best the imagination of the platform.”
In the statement, signed by Francisca Onyeisi, head of communications, Ms. Oduah said that if the reports were true, she would have been arrested long before now, especially at a time when the EFCC is “freezing accounts and going after opposition governors who enjoy same level of immunity as the president.”
The former minister, therefore, urged her supporters and the general public to ignore the reports, saying she had “made a mark in oil and gas and Agricultural businesses before joining politics.”
Meanwhile, the SEAIL members argued that the EFCC was diligent in sourcing information and works with tangible evidence and insisted that the purported source of the report may not be staff of the agency.
According to their statement, “We would like to state unequivocally that this report is totally false, baseless and has no sense in it. In the first place, Sen Oduah has no female domestic staff.
“In the second place, what would be the sense in putting such money in a personal account. -is it for savings or concealment -either of which makes no sense no matter how big the person is?
“We are confident to say that the report did not by any imagination arose from EFCC because the EFCC of today we know are diligent and works with facts.
“We are convinced that the source of the report must be the handiwork of some mischief makers who have not hidden their determination to bring Sen oduah down by every means.
“They succeeded in pushing her out of government during the last regime but failed to stop her from winning her election to the senate.
“Oduah is one of the few senators who after one year in office is still battling with pre election matters in court.
“We are convinced that it is because they have not been able to completely uproot the distinguished senator that they reverted to their usual character assassination strategy.
“It is our wish to use this opportunity to appeal to the persecutors of Senator Oduah to let her be in the name of God after so much trauma.
“They must remember that Senator Oduah is not a new name in the Nigerian economy. It is known to all that Senator Oduah was a well known business woman who founded and managed an outstanding successful business in the oil and gas sector before venturing into government.
“It is also well known to every fair minded Nigerian she lost her business as a result of her incursion into government for which reason she came out of government poorer than she went in.
“We want to state that our only consolation in the regrettable senerio that is playing out now is that Sen Oduah’s work in government as aviation minister can not be denied even by her worse enemies. Her work at the airports shall remain the pride of the aviation industry in the next 30yrs.
“As a senator. Sen Oduah has continued to put up an exemplary performance.”
