Reps Members Quit Over Bribe Crisis

The controversy surrounding the probe of the Security and Exchange Commission by the House of Representatives has claimed its first set of victims.
This is evident in the decision of the Chairman of the Committee, Herman Hembe, to step down from headship of the committee as well as disqualify himself from the on-going probe of the sector.

The leadership of the House also announced that the entire membership of the committee have also stepped down.

According to Hembe, his decision to step down followed the allegations of bribery and other conflict of interest and bias levelled against him by the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Arunma Oteh, last Thursday, at the public hearing organised by the committee.

Oteh had during the hearing, accused Hembe of demanding a bribe of N39 million from SEC for the hearing. She also accused Mr Hembe of demanding N5million from the commission to enable him travel to the Dominican Republic to attend an Emerging market conference without embarking on the journey and did not return the money after failing to attend the conference.

The DG made these accusations in response to the claims by the Committee that she has mismanaged the affairs of the commission and the committee was out to tarnish her integrity.

She questioned the credibility of the Chairman of the committee in conducting the probe, considering her allegations. Oteh had been accused spending huge funds belonging to the commission on personal issues. She was accused of spending N30 million during her eight-month stay at the Transcorp Hilton hotel, Abuja and N850,000 on a single day on food. She was also accused of compromising her office by engaging two employees of Access Bank Plc. on secondment to her office. Hembe said this led to a situation which placed a firm that should be under SEC’s watch at an unfair advantage.

In his response, Mr Hembe noted all the allegations listed by the SEC and subjected himself and the committee to another probe which he urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to take up.

Hembe said he neither demanded nor took any bribe from the SEC DG, “but rather fought hard to resist any such temptation.” He said SEC made overtures to the committee through a memo ahead of the probe, vowing to go to court to clear his name.

Arising from these, the House immediately set up an ad-hoc committee to be headed by Ibrahim El-Sudi from Taraba state to take up the activities of the capital market committee. The new committee is expected to produce a new schedule within 21 days.