An ex-convict from the United States identified as Uche Ben Odunze is contesting a seat in the House of Representatives for Orlu/Osu/Oru/Imo East Federal Constituency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Forty-one-year-old Mr Odunze, who claims to be a commercial property manager was sentenced to prison on January 17, 2013, under the name Uche Ben Odunzeh for defrauding the American Centre for Medicare and Medicaid System (CMS).
According to report, Mr Odunze had lied to the U.S. government to claim remuneration for supplying sophisticated high-end wheelchairs (K0011) when his company, Emerald Medical, only provided cheap and basic wheelchairs to beneficiaries of the Medicaid health programme.
The deportee was paid $6,157 per K0011 spec wheelchair, almost twice the price of the basic chairs he supplied, earning himself a whopping $232,470 more than the actual cost of the equipment delivered.
In addition to the chair scam, Mr Odunze also swindled the U.S. government to the tune of $44,913 for adult incontinence items (diapers, briefs, liners, disposable underpads and gloves) that he did not deliver to Medicaid beneficiaries.
Guilty of the one-count charge of defrauding the foreign government, Mr Odunze opted for a plea deal that reduced his sentence to 19 months, forfeiture of $277,383 to the American government and deportation because he had been living illegally in the U.S. before his arrest and conviction. He was also slammed with three years of supervisory release.
Following his return to Nigeria, Mr Odunze started promoting himself as a real estate investor and received flowering places in a section of the Nigerian media. But he stayed away from contesting political positions until now, apparently acquainted with the constitutional provisions that allow criminals to run for office after 10 years of their conviction.
Section 66 (1) (a) of the Nigerian Constitution said: “No person shall be qualified for election to the Senate or the House of Representatives if within a period of fewer than 10 years before the date of an election to a legislative house, he has been convicted and sentenced for an offence involving dishonesty or he has been found guilty of a contravention of the Code of Conduct.”
The National Assembly elections have been fixed to hold on February 25, 2023, according to a timetable released by the electoral office INEC. Mr Odunze’s sentence will be 10 years on January 17, 2023, roughly six weeks before the date of the election.