Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation
FOLLOWING a leak from the detention cell of Sen. Shehu Sani over alleged extortion of $24,000, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC) on Friday said the former lawmaker is not being probed because he is a known critic of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
The commission said the Senator has questions to answer.
Sani, in the leak, said the extortion allegation was “nothing but a wholesale falsehood, packaged in a phantom anti-graft facade to taint, stain and mute me.”
He said the “Chairman of ASD Motors, Alhaji Sani Dauda and his hidden sponsors have not been able to provide any proof of their allegations.
But the EFCC in a statement by its Acting Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Tony Orilade said the Senator’s claims were phantoms.
The statement said: “The EFCC, has taken note of insinuations and phantom claims that the Commission is “prosecuting” Senator Shehu Sani, because he is a known critic of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
“The Commission wishes to state that Senator Shehu Sani is currently facing criminal investigation, and he is being detained by the EFCC in very conducive environment, based on a valid court order.
“Invariably, claims in some quarters of the breach of his fundamental human rights, is merely in the imagination of the purveyors of such claims.
“Let it be stated clearly, that Senator Shehu Sani has questions to answer as regards the alleged involvement in name-dropping, and particularly that he obtained $25,000 from Alhaji Sani Dauda, the ASD Motors boss, in order to help shield him from investigations being carried out by the EFCC.
“For certain people to brazenly come out to defend a suspect who is being probed for a serious offence as the one committed by Sani, shows that they are not really conversant with his offence.
“It is unfortunate that certain people are ready to do anything to support evil for pecuniary gains. This is quite unfortunate!”
On his part, Sen. Sani said: “Alhaji Sani Dauda and his hidden sponsors have not been able to provide any proof of their allegations.
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“I’m unjustly incarcerated on the ground of an arranged two-page petition backed with no evidential or documentary proof.
“The bribe story is a heap of blatant lies and outright falsehood concocted and fabricated, using a front and the EFCC to premiere a state drama.
“ASD is a barely educated front for a state mission. Criminalizing me, or “framing me”, will not silence me, bend me or compromise me.”
He said he had never met with the Chief Justice of Nigeria or any judge or judges directly or indirectly to offer any form of gratification from Alhaji Sani Dauda.
He added: “They claim extortion and here they are closing my bank accounts, searching my houses and offices and demanding I declare my assets of which I have already done that at the CCB last year when I left the Senate.
“The extortion allegation is nothing but a wholesale falsehood, packaged in a phantom anti-graft facade to taint, stain and mute me. That shall never happen if I am alive.”
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