1 week Ago By Sheddy Ozone
The expansive headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Jabi, Abuja, deserves to have a wing for circuses. The building is so imposing that the mere sight should frighten the crime-minded, but behind the façade lies a clay-footed anti-graft agency that enjoys playing to the gallery and priding itself in the absurd. Over the years, it has witnessed many spectacular acts of unseriousness but on the watch of Olukayode Olanipekun, unnecessary ego now drives its policies and operations.
Nowhere has this absurdity played out more than in its lousy handling of the case involving Yahaya Bello. The timid handling of Bello, a wanted man who visited its headquarters in Jabi, Abuja, last Wednesday, was not only lacking in tact, it shows that the Commission now takes the sensibilities of Nigerians for granted. The EFCC had, last April, declared Bello wanted after he failed to appear for arraignment on N80.
2 billion money laundering charges. Instead of responding to the charges, the former governor who had boasted that he was ready to face any inquisition into his tenure in office, preferred to take the agency on a long ride. ‘The White Lion’ holed up for months, literally under the bed of his successor in office, Governor Ahmed Ododo somewhere in Lugard House, seat of the state government in Lokoja, from where he occasionally sneaks out of town and into his Abuja mansion.
The boldest attempt to arrest him later that month in Abuja was thwarted by Governor Ododo who deployed his official vehicles and security details to Bello’s Abuja home to rescue him and drive him out of the city. Bello returned to his hide-out in Lokoja even though many say he has severally been sighted in the nation’s capital as well as his native Okene. Though the EFCC declared him wanted, placed him on the watch list, got all security agencies to mount a manhunt for him and placed him on INTERPOL red alert, the cat and mouse game has lasted all of six months.
So, when last Wednesday, September 18, 2024, Bello walked into the EFCC headquarters in Abuja, the public heaved a sigh of relief; at last the man whom many swear would lead the EFCC to the whereabouts of far more than the N80 billion that allegedly developed wings on his watch as governor, would be in custody. But rather than arrest and clamp him in detention for interrogation and onward arraignment, the EFCC Chairman simply waved him away. Why did the EFCC refuse to arrest a man who was publicly advertised as a felon running from the law; a man it has told every other agency to arrest on sight? The agency said it rejected the manner Bello reported to the commission and so it allowed Bello who spent 2 hours loitering within the EFCC premises to return to his luxurious car and drive off.
Upon realising that Bello came with the Kogi state governor, the EFCC Chairman directed that no official should attend to him. Olanipekun’s grouse is that Bello by-passed documentation formalities and instead of coming with his lawyer, ‘breached the EFCC protocol’ by coming for an invitation in a convoy of vehicles and with a sitting governor. So what? Are these enough reasons to ask a wanted felon to drive off? Agreed that the EFCC also did not invite the governor, was his mere presence within its premises enough to thwart a legitimate arrest of Bello? So all a felon needs to be let go, is to arrive at the EFCC with someone with immunity.
Olanipekin’s action was absurd, to say the least, and he needs to explain that to Nigerians. More absurd was that it became the lot of his anti-graft agency to dispel media reports that the former governor was in its custody. Ironically, not long after Bello drove away, the same agency reiterated that the man it had declared wanted for alleged N80.
2 billion money laundering charges for over half a year, and who was sighted in its premises earlier in the day “remains wanted with a subsisting warrant for his arrest”. Nothing can be more self-indicting. The truth is that the Chairman who was in his office when Bello drove into the premises in an executive convoy, felt humiliated that the felon he had tried unsuccessfully to arrest in Abuja and Lokoja, surrendered to the EFCC on his own, and with cameras flashing.
To make matters worse, the man had primed the media to report his trip to the EFCC himself. It was too much of a humiliation and the EFCC chairman refused to order Bello’s arrest or to see him. He holed up in his office while Bello chatted with his Chief of Staff and other sundry staff for all of two hours.
Rather than arrest him within the EFCC premises, Olanipekun vowed to humiliate him with a public arrest anytime anywhere. His second attempt at arresting Bello, this time at the Kogi State Lodge in Asokoro later that day ended with gunshots that could have led to a bloodbath before common sense prevailed and the EFCC operatives numbering over 30 were asked to withdraw. Today, due to Olanipekun’s ineptitude, Bello still walks free.
Why were all these necessary, and since when did the Chairman’s ego become part of EFCC operational policy?.
