Innoson Goup has responded to a statement by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the arrest of its Chairman/CEO Innocent Chukwuma. The EFCC had accused the industrialist of jumping administrative bail. Chukwuma was picked up from his home in Enugu yesterday by the commission for failing to honour several invitations issued and jumping an administrative bail granted by the agency.
The company’s response
In a press release signed by the group’s head of corporate communications, Cornel Osigwe, the company denied jumping bail, or mobilizing armed thugs to molest EFCC staff. The company also challenged the agency to provide evidence of any invitation issued to its Chairman.
“We challenge EFCC to show proof and evidence of EFCC invitation extended to Dr Chukwuma; the various dates of the invitation and the letter of the invitation extended to him. We further challenge EFCC to also show proof of how and when did Dr Chukwuma jump an administrative bail granted to him,”
Osigwe also stated that the last invitation from the EFCC to its chairman was in 2012, which he honoured.
Likely reasons for the invite
The Innoson chairman has had disagreements with the GT Bank. His company had sued the bank for allegedly debitingits current account of the sum of ₦700 million from its account in alleged illegal and unauthorized charges. The company subsequently went to court and was awarded a sum of ₦2.7 billion with 22% interest. The judgement sum, has since grown to over ₦8 billion.
In response to the court case, GT bank instituted a court case accusing Chukwuma and three others of allegedly forging shipping documents to obtain a ₦2.4 billion loan. Chukwuma, has however denied obtaining any such loan from the bank. A ₦1.2 billion loan his company had obtained, had since being repaid.
