Confusion Trails Alleged Arrest Of Ex-senate President Saraki By EFCC
The immediate past president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, has been reportedly arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of theft and money laundering.
Saraki was said to be arrested in Abuja on Saturday afternoon shortly after attending a wedding ceremony of a daughter of one of his loyalists and the Third Republic Kwara State governor, Senator Shaba Lafiagi
EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, was not reachable at the time of filing this report.
An aide to the former Senate President, however, denied the purported arrest of his principal.
“No truth in it”, the aide said when asked if the former senate president was arrested by the EFCC.
An online portal and several Nigerian dailies reported that former Kwara State governor was arrested after he was accused of using several proxy companies to launder money when he was governor.
The EFCC had, in 2019, said it would probe Saraki’s earnings between 2003 and 2011 when he was governor of Kwara.
The commission was reported to have seized some of his houses in the Ikoyi area of Lagos then.
But Saraki, on May 10, 2019, filed two separate suits marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/507/19 and FHC/ABJ/CS/508/19 respectively before Justice Taiwo Taiwo to challenge the action of the EFCC.
Justice Taiwo, who was the presiding judge, ruled on an ex parte application filed along with the substantive suits and ordered the anti-corruption agency and other five respondents to the suits to stay action on the probe pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice filed by the applicant.
The court had directed the parties to maintain the status quo by suspending the probe.
But the EFCC later applied that the judge should recuse himself and the matter be transferred to another court.
Justice Taiwo sent back the case file to the chief judge and the matter was reassigned to Justice Justice Anwuli Chikere for adjudication.
But when the matter came up on Wednesday, July 14, 2021, the anti-graft agency told the court that the action of the former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has been hindering the agency from probing him
