Sanwo-Olu Drags EFCC To Court Over Threat of Arrest, Prosecution After Tenure
…Gov Says Commission Mounting Pressure On His Aides To Incriminate him
…Points Accusing Finger At Political Adversaries
Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has filed a fundamental human rights enforcement suit against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over an alleged plan to arrest him on none-existent corruption allegations after his tenure.
The Governor filed the suit through his lawyer, Darlington Ozurumba, before Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The matter has been adjourned to November 11, 2024.
According to the affidavit in support of the originating summons deposed to by Martha Kanu, a litigation secretary in the law firm, the lawyer said she was informed the facts by the governor at a teleconference meeting which she believed to be true.
She alleged that as a way of getting at the governor, the EFCC was now making a surreptitious plan to arrest some of his aides and family members based on the false and spurious allegations of diversion of funds.
She said the officials of the commission were now mounting pressure on some of the aides of the governor to come and make incriminating statements against him.
Besides, Kanu alleged that the anti-graft agency was also threatening to go after some contractors handling projects for the state government.
She added the agency was compelling them to come and make statements to implicate Sanwo-Olu of corruption as part of the orchestrated contrivance to build up a trump-up case against him.
According to her, in a malicious attempt to get at the plaintiff, some of the plaintiff’s political adversaries in conjunction with some of the officials of the defendant are falsely ascribing to his administration of corrupt practices which are none existent.
She alleged that the EFCC, through some of its officials, were desperately inventing false, spurious and malicious allegations against the governor to use the same as a basis for investigating, arresting and prosecuting him after leaving office as governor.
The Governor, according to a report by Vanguard Newspaper, is therefore, seeking a declaration that under and by virtue of the provisions of Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution, “the plaintiff, as a citizen of Nigeria, is entitled to the right to private and family life as a minimum guarantee encapsulated under the Constitution of the Republic of Nigeria, 1999 before, during and after the occupation of a public office created by the Constitution.”
