The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has denied the
allegation that it is shielding Kingsley Kuku, a former aide of
ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, from prosecution.
Kuku, the
Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Committee, has been accused of
aiding pipeline vandalization in the Niger Delta.
A source in the Department of State Services had on Monday said the EFCC was shielding Kuku from prosecution.
Kuku fled the country some months back.
But the EFCC in a statement on Tuesday by its spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren said there was no truth in the allegation.
It said what was made available on the issue was “Dugbe” intelligence.
Dugbe is a popular market in Ibadan, the Oyo State, capital.
The
statement reads: The report published under two different headlines:
“DSS accuses anti-graft agency of protecting Jonathan’s former aide”,
and “Jonathan’s wanted aide being protected by govt. agency –DSS”,
contained allegations that an anti-graft agency which is purportedly
investigating Mr. Kingsley Kuku, a former Special Adviser to former
President Goodluck Jonathan, on the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme, is in
reality shielding him from the law. The phantom claim is made more
ludicrous by the fact that it is attributed to some unnamed sources in
the Department of State Services, DSS.
The EFCC ordinarily ought
not to dignify the reports with a response given that it was not
directly named by the ghost sources. However, the stories are dripping
with innuendos that left little to the imagination regarding the agency
under reference. While Vanguard stayed within the script of the game of
ostrich handed to it by the purveyors of the unsubstantiated report, The
Punch took a further step to identify the EFCC as the agency that is
known to be investigating Kuku. Punch’s allusion is a fact known to
everybody but the authors of the malicious story were either scared of
the Commission or too embarrassed by their infantile gambit to name the
EFCC.
For the avoidance of doubt, EFCC is investigating the
Amnesty Office managed by Kuku. The Commission was compelled to declare
him wanted in July 2015 after he failed to honour an invitation sent to
him for interrogation on July 28, 2015. Rather than appear before the
team investigating the allegations of fraud against him, he sent a
letter, through his counsel, Karina Tunyan, claiming that he “is
currently in the United States of America to keep an appointment with
his doctors”, with a promise to appear on September 30, 2015. He never
did, and his last known place of abode has remained the US, a different
territorial jurisdiction.
In February 2016, in a bid to forestall
his arrest by the EFCC, Kuku approached a Federal High Court in Lagos,
seeking to stop the agency from arresting him on his possible return to
Nigeria. The trial judge, Justice Okon Abang, dismissed his application
as lacking in merit, and upheld the statutory powers of the EFCC to
investigate him.
It
must be stated unequivocally that the EFCC has no personal interest, or
business with Kuku, other than the fact that he is a fugitive, who is
wanted by the Commission to stand trial in Nigeria. The allegation in
the reports that “the agency is in criminal connivance with fugitive
Kingsley Kuku” is a blatant lie. Also untrue and fallacious is the claim
that the EFCC is “directly and brazenly facilitating the concealment of
the looted several billions of naira”.
After he spurned the
Commission’s invitation, Kuku’s aides who are believed to have assisted
him in perpetrating various acts of corruption were arrested, questioned
and charged to court. Henry Ugbolue and Lawrence Pepple, close aides to
Kuku, are facing charges before a Federal Capital Territory High Court
Abuja.
An agency which is on the lookout for Kuku and had docked
his aides on corruption charges cannot be the same agency that would be
accused of offering assistance to the same suspect or doing his bidding
by harassing his adversaries. So the so-called cover up is deliberately
concocted tissue of lies, apparently aimed at impugning the good image
of the EFCC
The EFCC is inclined to believe that this campaign of
misinformation has no official endorsement of the DSS. Otherwise it
should have no problem owning its report by stating it openly as it has
done in recent times. It is the Commission’s hunch that someone is
dropping the name of “unnamed DSS Sources” to give a veneer of
credibility to a lie and set both agencies on a collision course.
This
seemingly concocted report is the latest in a series of orchestrated
campaign of calumny against the Commission by shadowy forces that are
obviously envious of the success of the EFCC, especially at a time, when
the anti-graft agency enjoys the status of the shining light of the
President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration’s war against corruption.
Furthermore,
the allegation that a raid on the house of a former deputy speaker of
the House of Representatives, Chibudom Nwuche, was carried out “based on
the instruction of Kuku” is nothing but the figment of the imagination
of the authors and their “sources”. How logical is it that the
Commission would be taking instruction from a man it has declared wanted
and who has remained a fugitive? The nation should be saved this “Dugbe
Intelligence”, as the EFCC is fired only by professionalism and would
not be sucked into the apparent political battle between Nwuche and
Kuku.
Nwuche is perfectly aware of the outcome of the Commission’s
investigation as it affects him and it will serve his interest to
direct his energy to dealing with the other issue of alleged illegal
possession of firearms currently being investigated by the Nigeria
Police.
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