Hehehehe...THE Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission has concluded plans to commence the probe of the former
President Goodluck Jonathan with investigations into the financial
transactions of his ministers and aides.
The Fidelis Chidi blog learnt that the
Chairman of the commission, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, had already directed
that all petitions against former public officers at the federal level
should be forwarded to him to be acted upon.
Findings showed that former ministers,
special advisers, heads of parastatals and those of other Federal
Government agencies would be invited for interrogation by the EFCC in
few weeks from now.
Our correspondents learnt that the
anti-graft agency would focus on those whose establishments attracted
huge allocations from the Federal Government when Jonathan was in power.
Such ministries and agencies, it was learnt, included defence, petroleum resources and power.
Three top sources in the anti-graft
agency confided in one of our correspondents that Lamorde was
“determined to expose any corrupt act during the administration of the
former President.”
One of the sources, who confided in one
of our correspondents, explained that anti-graft operatives had yet to
arrest any of the former ministers, special advisers and heads of
agencies who served under the former President.
The source said, “I am not aware of
anybody who has been summoned or interrogated by the commission. Those
to be interrogated would be determined by the gravity of the allegations
against them as contained in the petitions.
“What happened last week was that a
directive was issued to move all petitions against public office holders
under the former President to the office of the Chairman.
“The files will be studied and assigned
to units to handle the investigations. It is based on the petitions that
people will be summoned.
“Most likely next week, action would be taken on those petitions…”
But the Head of Media and Publicity of
the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwajaren, denied knowledge of such a directive when
one of our correspondents contacted him on the telephone on Monday.
“I am not aware of the directive you are talking about. It is not to my knowledge,” the agency’s spokesman said.
Reacting to the development, the Deputy
National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji
Abdullahi Jalo, said the party was not afraid of a probe.
According to him, the party and former
President Goodluck Jonathan have nothing to hide, saying all the party
is asking for is that any probe must be within the ambit of the law.
Jalo said the PDP as a political party
discharged its duty of providing leadership for Nigeria for 16 years and
that it did so transparently.
He said, “I am sure Nigerians still
remember that it was because of PDP’s desire to deal with the scourge of
corruption that our government under the leadership of President
Olusegun Obasanjo established the EFCC and the ICPC. The records are
there.
“All we are asking for is that there
must be fairness and justice, whatever probe they want to carry out must
have respect for the rule of law, good conscience and the fear of God.
“Such a probe must not be carried out
based on vendetta or simply because somebody does not like the name or
the face of somebody.”
Jalo also advised the All Progressives
Congress-led administration to pay more attention to providing
leadership to Nigeria, “rather than dissipating energy in the pursuit of
trivialities.”
The Senior Special Adviser to the
President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had in an interview
last week, said President Muhammadu Buhari would probe Jonathan’s
government.
He had said that the present
administration would recover billions of dollars, adding that “the world
is too small a place for anybody to hide if you are running from
justice.”
“It doesn’t mean that anybody that has
ill-gotten wealth will not regurgitate it. They will. Remember when he
(Buhari) went to Germany for the G7 summit, he met with President Obama
and Obama told him to just give us information on where the loot is
hidden and we will help you recover it and the government has been
working on that. So, that shows that looters will never go free,” he had
said.
Operatives of the Department of State
Services had invaded the houses of Jonathan’s National Security Adviser,
Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.) on Friday forcing the former NSA to a house
arrest for 24 hours.
The security agency in a statement the
following day accused Dasuki of felony, misuse of power and possession
of destructive weapons.
It said it recovered from Dasuki’s home
seven high calibre rifles (high assault weapons), several magazines,
military related gear and 12 new vehicles, including five bulletproof
cars.
A top officer of the DSS had confided in one of our correspondents that Dasuki would face further interrogations this week.
Also, the ex-President’s Chief Security
Officer, Gordon Obua, was being detained as part of investigations into
the security spending at the Presidential Villa during his time.
A lawyer to Obua has raised the alarm about the detention of his client.
The lawyer, Onochie Onwuegbuna, said in a
statement that Obua had been in detention since July 16 without being
told what offence he committed.
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