Ekweremadu Visits Obanikoro, Abati, Others
Deputy Senate President paid a solidarity visit to four aides of former president currently held by EFCC over alleged graft.
Ekweremadu visited the four men at the EFCC headquarters at around 5pm yesterday to identify with them.
He was reportedly received by EFCC’s Deputy Director, Operations, Umar Abbas who also took him round.
Ekweremadu enjoined the four detainees to see the situation as a leadership challenge.
“I urge you all to be of good cheer and to keep your spirit high. What is happening to you today happened to our great leaders like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and other top Nigerians who stood for the good of the people of Nigeria.”
Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Senator Bala Mohammed, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and Dr. Reuben Abati are also officials of the PDP. They were taken into custody by EFCC at different times on various allegations bordering on mismanagement of public funds. Most prominent is the $2.1bn arms fraud.
Obanikoro is linked with the N4.7 billion allegedly traced to firms close to him. Mohammed is alleged to have awarded contracts worth N8bn to fronts and also abused a major land swap deal valued at about N1trn trillion. Fani-Kayode and Abati are linked with collecting funds from the ONSA for undisclosed reasons.
EFCC Gives Abati Conditional Bail
The EFCC confirmed it has granted called ‘Administrative Bail’. It is on condition that Abati drops his International Passport and produces a surety of not below the rank of deputy director in the civil service.
The former presidential aide has reportedly not met the bail conditions yet. It was also learnt that while Abati was preparing to meet his bail conditions and return home. The commission had earlier in the day secured a court warrant to further detain Mr. Mohammed for undisclosed number of days.
The source hinted that since his arrival, Mohammed had not given sufficient information relating to the issues he is being accused of and that the commission needed more time to interact with him.
“We have obtained a new warrant to keep Bala Mohammed because we are not yet through with investigating the issues related to him,” the source hinted.
