A former Vice-Chairman and member, Board of Trustees of
the Arewa Consultative Forum, Senator Joseph Waku, has accused the National
Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, of allegedly
masterminding the petition that has changed the wife of the Senate President,
Mrs. Toyin Saraki, to be invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission.
According to him, the decision was followed by a promise to
help secure a second term for the EFCC Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde.
But Tinubu said Waku should not be taken seriously, as he
was broke and needed “a quick fix.”
Waku, a leader of the APC, in a statement sent to
journalists in Abuja on Saturday, described a situation where Tinubu would be
allegedly using his personal relationship with the EFCC Chairman “to embarrass
and torment fellow party members” as unfortunate.
Waku, in the statement, claimed that his findings showed
that Tinubu personally gave the petition to Lamorde under the guise that he was
submitting it on behalf of the APC leadership to punish Saraki for working
against the party’s leadership on the choice of National Assembly leaders.
He said, “I have chosen to speak out on this issue and make
my findings on this issue known to the public. After days of painstaking
enquiries, I discovered that both Tinubu and Lamorde maintain a mutually
beneficial relationship since the days of Lamorde as the EFCC Director of
Operations and based in Lagos between 2003 and 2007, when Tinubu was equally
the Governor of Lagos.
“I also discovered from my findings in EFCC that the
so-called petition against Mrs. Saraki was personally given to Lamorde by
Tinubu under the guise that he was submitting the petition on behalf of the APC
leadership to punish Saraki for working against the party’s leadership on the
choice of National Assembly leaders. This was followed by a promise to help
secure a second term for Lamorde as EFCC chairman.”
The controversial Benue State politician, who once called
for military coup few years after the return of democracy, expressed his
concern that EFCC “is again being dragged into the political arena to settle
political scores like some years ago.”
But when SUNDAY PUNCH contacted Tinubu’s Media Adviser, Mr.
Sunday Dare, he said, “No one should pay Senator Waku any attention. We know
when he is broke and needs a quick fix.”
He added, “What he has said is fit for the trash. No one
should dignify Waku’s tales by moonlight with any attention or ever take him
serious.
“For any serious individual with a reputation to protect,
Waku is a very poor hire. Waku is an individual with no shred of reputation and
a political pariah in his home state.
“Tinubu does not run or dictate to the EFCC. And like
countless others, Tinubu had also been investigated by the EFCC several times
in the past. Tinubu has no hand in the travails of anyone because he is right
now very busy, working with others of like minds on how the APC political
agenda can set sail as quickly as possible. That is the urgency of now and not
the tantrums of the likes of Waku.”
Also, some members of the House of Representatives have
kicked against Saraki’s wife’s invitation by the EFCC, who is billed to answer
the invitation on Tuesday.
In a statement signed by the lawmakers representing
Lokoja/Kogi Federal Constituency, Umar Buba Jibril, and another representing
Okehi/Adavi Federal Constituency, Muhammad Kabiru Ajanah, on behalf of 25 others
in Abuja on Saturday, described the invitation as “highly suspicious.”
The group said while it would continue to encourage the EFCC
to carry out its legal mandate, it was optimistic that the highly professional
anti-graft body, “will not lend itself as a tool to propagate the political
agenda of any person or group.”
The lawmakers added that they held strongly that the days of
using the EFCC to harass and intimidate political opponents were gone, warning
that, “We must never return to that dark and dangerous side in our polity.”
Several telephone calls, emails and SMS messages to the
spokesman of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, on Saturday for his response to the
allegation were not replied.
However, an Abuja-based Non-Governmental Organisation, Society
for Exemplary Leadership and Transparency, in a statement issued in Abuja on
Saturday, dismissed the Like Minds Senators’ political insinuation into the
invitation of Mrs Saraki by the EFCC.
The group, in the statement signed by Mr. Emmanuel Johnson, asked
why the senators could see the invitation as one from a legally constituted
agency of the state instead of their “parochial angle.”
It said, “It is now clearer than before that this set of
senators are, indeed, hindrance to transparent governance promised Nigerians by
the APC, and they will scuttle legislations and policies design to enthrone
accountability and transparency.”
The NGO reminded the senators that it would have been more
altruistic if they had also questioned a similar invitation of the daughter of
the late former President Umaru Yar’Adua and wife of a former Kebbi State
Governor, Hajia Zainab Dakingari by the EFCC.
“In view of these, we hasten to ask: why were you silent and
did not mention ‘political motivation’ when, recently, other former state
governors such as Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Sule Lamido (Jigawa) were invited
to account for their years in office?” The statement added.
Copyright PUNCH.
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