• No cause for alarm –Gov
From ISMAIL
OMIPIDAN, Kaduna
Barely one week after the Directorate of State Security Service, SSS, arrested some top officials of seven different banks in the country, ostensibly as part of the alleged clampdown on the G-7 governors of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, officials of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday night, between the hours of 11 and 11.30pm, arrested the two sons of Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, Aminu and Mustapha Lamido.
This latest arrest is coming about one year after Lamido’s eldest son, Aminu, was arrested at the Kano
International airport, on his way to Egypt, with his family, for medical attention, on the allegation that he failed to declare the $50, 000 in his possession. He was said to have declared only $10, 000, to the Nigerian Customs Service.
The arrest is also coming ahead of the meeting of the Governor Rotimi Ameachi-led Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, in Sokoto today (Saturday) in which, Governor Sule Lamido, is a leading member.
Before the governor’s two sons , Alhaji Aminu Sule Lamido and Alhaji Mustapha Sule Lamido were arrested Thursday night, Saturday Sun gathered authoritatively that the Jigawa State Accountant-General, Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government Affairs, Rector, Dutse Polytechnic and 15 other top government officials had been arrested by the EFCC, and have all been moved to Abuja. While Aminu is a Bayero University graduate of Mass Communication, Mustapha who is an alumnus of the University of Abuja is the district head of the Baimana village in Jigawa.
Besides, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, and the SSS, had sent their men to Dutse, the Jigawa State capital, to look into government books thoroughly, with a view to establishing any infraction that may have been committed by the state governor. They are specifically to look into the State’s Pension Funds accounts and other government accounts, Saturday Sun, further learnt.
And the State governor, it was further gathered, had directed all the State officials, to give the security agencies, all and everything they asked for, to assist them in their investigations.
No statement has been issued from the EFCC, concerning these series of arrest. However, an impeccable source within the EFCC, confirmed the arrest to Saturday Sun.
Besides, Saturday Sun recalls that in the build up to the 2011 elections, when it was feared that Lamido was not likely to back President Jonathan’s candidature, EFCC men also stormed the State, to arrest top government officials for questioning. But two years after that arrest and subsequent release of the government officials, no one has been prosecuted; neither has the EFCC given any update on the arrest.
This is why political observers believe that this latest invasion by the EFCC too, may not be unconnected with 2015 and the current crisis within the PDP, where Lamido and six other of his colleagues have since been penciled down for “all manner assaults-psychological and otherwise” in a bid to force them to back down on their current struggle “to return PDP to the path of Rule of Law, Justice and fairness.”
Interestingly, on the night that his sons were arrested, Lamido, had in an interview aired on the Hausa Service of an Abuja-based Vision FM, alleged that a serving minister in Jonathan’s cabinet received a bribe of $250 million from an oil company, and that in spite of the fact that he (Lamido) informed President Jonathan about the fraud, the President refused to investigate the matter, adding that “he (minister) knows and I know, and I told the President.”
When Saturday Sun called him to react to the arrest of his sons, in the wee hours of yesterday, Lamido said:” yes, I am in Abuja. I just got a call that my sons have been picked up by the EFCC. But there is no cause for alarm.”
Saturday Sun recalls that Lamido, had in September, this year, while urging members of the Baraje-led faction of the PDP, to brace up for the challenges ahead, predicted that a day would come when the EFCC would come after them, in their struggle to “salvage the PDP and the country’s democracy.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment