ADAMA Adama, the Chief Executive Officer of Enadama Group, accused of fraudulent investment schemes, has won the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket for Apa/Agatu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.
He will contest the election to represent the constituency in the National Assembly during the 2023 general elections.
This is despite several allegations of theft and abuse of trust levelled against him before he went into politics.
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On April 24, Adama’s campaign posters emerged on social media, which became an issue of public debate among the aggrieved persons who had invested in his failed business schemes.
For a while, Adama was labelled a professional scammer and called out mainly for failing to pay investors returns after the victims committed several millions into the politician’s multiple investment schemes – Viablex, Farm4me and Ceepas with no Return on Investment (RoI).
Viable X was an export financing platform, Farm4Me was designed as a platform for contract farming while Ceepass served as a digital bank for savings and investments.
But, the party electoral committee, chaired by Samuel Shagbaor, and the secretary, Franklin Shankodi, over the weekend, said Adama recorded 21,747 votes to defeat his rival Godday Samuel Odagboyi, an incumbent lawmaker, who polled 3,151 votes, in the primary election.
The ICIR earlier reported on February 23 how the businessman turned politician allegedly ripped off an investor of over N8 million and shut down the office.
More investors criticised the businessman for reneging on his promise and still went incommunicado.
The aggrieved persons raised the alarm and tagged him with unprintable names.
Adama later admitted to some of the allegations in a letter submitted to the antigraft agencies – the Economic Financial and Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and other security operatives between January 10 and 11.
He promised to commence payment by the end of March or the third week of April, but only a few had since confirmed a price of about N100,000 capital, excluding the RoI.
Aiseosa Ogunbor, who invested over N6 million, told The ICIR that a social media group was set up to monitor the payments and design communication strategies to ensure the aggrieved members are paid.
But since the group was created, he disclosed the candidate still owes most of the investors whose investment amounts to over N457 million.
The ICIR contacted the ICPC spokesperson, Aruba Ogugua, over the development and the politician’s inability to fulfil his pledge despite his initial promise.
A copy of the letter titled “Situation Report on Business Activities involving: Farm4Me Agriculture Limited, Viable X Agribusiness Limited and Ceepass Digital Limited” was also shared with ICPC officials.
However, the ICPC spokesman stated that “the letter is addressed to the AIGP and others. ICPC is merely copied, so it’s for information only.”
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It was not certain if that response meant the ICPC could not investigate the matter because it was ‘merely copied; thus, this reporter probed further since the accused had clinched the APC party ticket to the National Assembly, and most of the aggrieved investors were yet to be settled.
However, she was yet to respond as of filing this report.
The EFCC Director of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, told The ICIR he was not privy to the petitions and the accused person. But this reporter offered to share a copy of the petition with him and later asked for his official email, but he had yet to respond.
The text message sent to him was yet to be responded to.
Adama was contacted to verify the repayment plan, but he did not respond to calls and a text message sent to him.
Olugbenga heads the Investigations Desk at The ICIR. Do you have a scoop? Shoot him an email at [email protected]. Twitter Handle: @OluAdanikin
This is the reason why people need to hold him back. We don’t need someone to go behind the shield of politics and office for 8 yrs and then hope people can’t collect their money again. We don’t need another Rochas and pension saga.
I am one of the victim of ceepass digital bank and i hope Adama will pay me my ROI as well as my capital please