Panel clears Senator of N3bn bribery allegation

The Senate Committee on Ethics and Public Petitions has absolved Senator Aloysius Etok of any wrong doing in the N3b bribery allegation, one year after it started investigation.

The senate leadership ordered investigation into the allegation by the Chairman of the disbanded Presidential Pension Reform Task Team, AbdulRasheed Maina, that the Etok-led probe panel on the management of pension funds demanded N3bn bribe from him.

Maina’s allegation was published by an Abuja based national newspaper.

The development forced the leadership of the senate to summon Etok for his reaction but he denied the allegation.

The upper chamber subsequently mandated its committee on ethics and public petitions to conduct an investigation into the matter.

The Senator Paul Akinyelure panel submitted its report during plenary on Thursday.

Although efforts at getting the findings and recommendations of the committee from Akinyelure were unsuccessful on Thursday as he was not in the office when our correspondent visited his office.

However, one of the committee members told our correspondent, on conditions of anonymity, that the panel absolved Etok and other members of his committee.

The source also explained that the management of the newspaper that published Maina’s allegation, “failed to prove the allegation against the senators beyond reasonable doubts.”

Senator Tinubu as a depiction picture