Femi Fani-Kayode said yesterday
that he has met all his bail conditions, that the EFCC should release him or
charge him to court. A statement signed yesterday by his media assistant, Jude
Ndukwe reads:
This is to refute the false
information being peddled by a section of the media that former Minister of
Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who has remained illegally detained by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) since May 9, 2016, has not met
his bail conditions as set by EFCC. Chief Fani-Kayode has since fulfilled the
conditions for his bail but rather than take the honourable path of releasing
him pending any charge brought against him, the anti-graft agency moved him
from Abuja to Lagos where they obtained a questionable warrant to further
detain him illegally for another three weeks.
This is all in a bid to forcefully extract statements from him that would implicate his principal, former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and other PDP leaders including serving governors whom he served as Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Campaign Organisation. It is obvious that the EFCC have other opposition leaders whom they have referred to as “big fish” in their radar and see Fani-Kayode as the only avenue through which they can “nail” such leaders, hence, the anti-graft agency’s puerile attempt to keep him in their custody beyond the legally required length of time in order to break him, his family, and force him to implicate innocent people just to achieve a more sinister motive of further silencing the opposition.
It is even more worrisome that the activities of the anti-graft agency has
reached an all-time low as they are insisting that the former Minister of
Culture and Tourism should name publishers, editors, journalists and bloggers
he allegedly gave money to during the election campaigns. What has journalists
who covered the PDP campaign as much as that of APC got to do with this? This
is the height of it all!
The further insistence by EFCC that Chief Fani-Kayode should deposit a sum of
$1m before he could be let go shows how desperate the agency is to keep him in
their custody and deny him his fundamental rights as guaranteed under Sections
33,34,35,37 and 41 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999
(As Amended) and Articles 4, 5, 6 and 12 of the African Charter on Human and
Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap 10 Laws of the
Federation of Nigeria 1990.
This further confirms our position that even though he has met his bail
conditions, the EFCC have no intention of letting him enjoy his bail nor do
they have any intention of playing by the rules. While we have copiously
acknowledged in the past and still do that EFCC have a constitutional and
mandatory duty to carry out their statutory function as empowered by our laws,
it is also our sincerest belief that these functions can be carried out within
the ambit of the law and without being tainted with vendetta, vindictiveness
and politics.
These are what discredit the agency and cast doubts in the minds of Nigerians
about the sincerity of the fight against corruption. In other climes where the
fight against corruption has been largely successful, suspects are thoroughly
investigated discretely, arrested after investigation has been concluded,
charged to court and punished if found guilty by a court of competent
jurisdiction. But here, we declare our targets guilty in the media, arrest them
before commencing investigation and use the courts to obtain contentious orders
to keep the suspects in custody indefinitely in lieu of a court-imposed
post-prosecution sanction.
The EFCC should allow Femi Fani-Kayode his freedom especially after having met
their set bail conditions or charge him before a court of competent
jurisdiction forthwith. He is not afraid to defend himself! - Jude Ndukwe SA
Media to Chief Femi Fani-Kayode
No comments:
Post a Comment