The
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) once again lived up to its
billing of being used by the current administration for the sinister purposes
of silencing the opposition under the guise of fighting corruption.
As
expected, and as earlier stated in his press statement, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode
had already raised the alarm that he was going to be rearrested by the EFCC as
the organisation whose operations have become easily predictable, have
graduated from being an investigative body meant to serve the interest of
Nigeria and Nigerians to a vindictive institution willing to do the biddings of
some vengeful cabal whose existence even the wife of the president confirmed
recently.
Let
it be on record that Chief Fani-Kayode was held for 67 days in EFCC custody who
used questionable orders from magistrates to perpetuate their illegality. While
in their custody, he suffered all forms of abuses, trauma and even physical
attacks from some of the agents of the Commission. Their thinking was that all
these torture and torments would be enough to silence him. But rather than
being silenced, Fani-Kayode, to the consternation of his traducers, has
remained faithful to his position right from the pre-election periods.
The
re-arrest of Fani-Kayode is needless as much as it is reckless.
Immediately
after he was granted bail by the courts, obviously to the disappointment of
state agents, he had been on a recovery therapy as recommended by his doctors
having suffered untold hardship in the hands of the EFCC. But realizing that
their plans to torture him into silence did not work, the Commission
immediately swung into action again by sending him another round of letters of
invitation for some other imagined charges to which his lawyers responded
promptly by informing the EFCC of his health conditions.
The
Commission filed their fresh case against him at the Federal High Court Abuja
in the Charge No. FHC/ABJ140/2016 earlier this month but despite the presence
of Fani-Kayode’s legal team, the EFCC were neither there nor did they send any
representative nor was their legal team in court. The case was consequently
adjourned to November 10, 2016 (Please, see attached).
We
are therefore aghast but not surprised that this latest action of the EFCC is
in sync with the script writers of this whole episode to silence Fani-Kayode by
hook or by crook. Words have filtered to us from credible sources within the
presidency and the security agencies that the ultimate aim of those who are
behind the former minister’s travails is to apply “extreme measures” on him. We
have also been told that in security circles, that means to have him killed
through the use of some poisonous substances that would break his health down
irreversibly and eventually kill him even months after he might have been
released so that the suspicion would not be at the doorsteps of state agents.
If not, why allow Nenadi Usman (former minister of State of Finance) and
Director of Finance in the PDP Campaign Organisation, Danjuma and others
charged alongside Fani-Kayode to go and only him was re-arrested in the court
premises?
Our
fears now are that nothing is beyond this government. We call on the good
people of Nigeria, democrats and lovers of this great nation to rise and demand
that no Nigerian should be persecuted or assassinated based on his beliefs and
or opinions on critical national matters. We are watching very closely, and
should anything untoward happen to FFK, Nigerians of course know who to hold
responsible even as we demand for his immediate and unconditional release now!
–Ndukwe
is Media Assistant to Fani-Kayode
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