'I'll Answer The Invitation On Monday'
WHAT played out yesterday in highbrow Asokoro District, Abuja was the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters: A common criminal is chased into a cul-de-sac by an unrelenting team of security operatives, or G-men (Government Men) in Gangland phalanx. Pandemonium breaks out. Streets are condoned off. Several police sirens jar all earlobes. Helicopters with powerful searchlights hover above the fugitive's safe-house. Negotiators take turn to speak to the hunted to give himself up for hours on end. Marksmen are at the ready to cut down the suspect if the hunted decides to leg it. Time stands still for all involved in the macabre faceoff.
But then Abuja is no Hollywood. The man holed up in the Asokoro palatial home is the country's Number Four Citizen. How bizarre that, hours to his relinquishing his exalted position of Speaker of the House of Representatives, he is being chased by operatives of an agency whose chairman was 'made' by the very lower chamber of the National Assembly the Speaker leads!
Nonetheless, several pairs of gaping eyes feasted on the theatre of the absurd as Speaker, House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, was yesterday saved from the hands of operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who moved in to arrest him in his private house in Asokoro, Abuja.
The raid was launched after a tip off that Bankole might flee the country yesterday before his official handing over scheduled for Monday, June 6.
But Bankole, yesterday declared that he was not preparing to run out of the country to evade possible arrest by the EFCC.
In a statement issued on his behalf by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Bakare, the Speaker declared that the presence of some officials of the EFCC near his private residence in the early hours of yesterday was not to effect his arrest.
According to the statement, "the Speaker has informed official of the EFCC of his intention to honour their invitation on Monday, June, 2011 at 2p.m."
A reliable source at the EFCC informed The Guardian that the agency had to move in on the Speaker in order to prevent him from going on the lam, following Bankole's failure to honour invitations extended to him by the anti-graft agency over the N10 billion loan he allegedly took on behalf of the House without recourse to due process.
Bankole, who had allegedly locked himself in since yesterday, was said have resisted arrest for upwards of five hours before the intervention of the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, who came on the scene to plead for the Speaker to be allowed to hand over on Monday.
The EFCC source said: "We got information on Thursday evening that the Speaker was planning an escape outside the country by this morning (Friday). So, we had to put him on a watch. We followed up this morning (Friday) by going to his house. He resisted arrest for between four and five hours. He shut himself in trying to call the whole world to come to his aid.
"The IG had to come and plead on his behalf for us to allow him hand over on Monday then immediately after that we can arrest him. Right now, he is in his house, he shut himself in. He placed himself on house arrest but our men are keeping surveillance on him."
Another source at the commission told The Guardian that the EFCC was ready to use the Speaker as a test case in the renewed fight against graft as pledged by President Goodluck Jonathan during his campaign and inauguration.
The source said: "Bankole will be a test case. Every minute he spends outside, he is doing something to see if he can evade the interrogation but there is nothing he can do."
Meanwhile, the EFCC, yesterday in Abuja, held a press conference to inform the public on the activities of some allegedly compromised leaders of the Committee for the Defence of Human Right (CDHR), who it said have mobilised some civil society groups in Lagos to fault the well-intentioned activities of the commission.
EFCC spokesman, Femi Babafemi, who addressed the press conference, told reporters that CDHR leaders were out to tarnish the anti-corruption crusade of the EFCC in order to save some high-profile individuals the Commission was currently investigating.
As regards Bankole's refusal to appear before the agency, Babafemi said: "We are not silent. Investigation is on-going. We will not open up on our line of action. The case is not closed".
On the former governors under the EFCC radar , Babafemi simply said: "Those that have cases with the Commission, we are on them. In the coming days, you will see certain development. When they are invited you will know the ex-governors."
He also added that the EFCC was filing an appeal against the court ruling concerning the case of former Edo State Governor, Lucky Igbinedion, even as it would continue with the prosecution of the former governor's brother.
When asked where recovered funds are kept, Babafemi, who had said that the Commission had recovered N975 billion or $6.5 billion between June 2008 and March 2011, said the monies were either kept in designated federal Government accounts or returned to victims.
Although Babafemi confirmed the surveillance on the Speaker, when The Guardian visited the Speaker's home on No 8, Richard Clapperton Street, Asokoro all was calm and there was no sign of any unusual event.
On the Speaker's reported position that the EFCC never invited him officially for interrogation, Babafemi provided two letters from the Clerk of the House, replying to the invitations served on the Speaker.
Source: N10b Loan Saga: Bankole Resists Arrest By EFCC (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50170:n10b-loan-saga-bankole-resists-arrest-by-efcc&catid=1:national&Itemid=559)