Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo north, has faulted Usman Ododo, governor of Kogi, for his interference in the saga involving Yahaya Bello and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).<\/p>\n
The EFCC has accused Bello, immediate-past governor of Kogi, of money laundering and corruption to the tune of N80.2 billion.<\/p>\n
On April 17, EFCC operatives laid siege to Bello\u2019s Abuja residence in a bid to arrest him for grilling but met deadlock as the Kogi state governor, Usman Ododo came to the rescue.<\/p>\n
Amid the drama, the Kogi high court delivered judgment in a fundamental rights enforcement suit, restraining the commission from \u201charassing, threatening to arrest or detaining\u201d the former governor.<\/p>\n
On the same day, the EFCC obtained a warrant of arrest against Bello from a federal high court in Abuja.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, the anti-graft agency declared the former governor wanted, while the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) placed Bello on a watchlist.<\/p>\n
Bello was also absent for an arraignment that was initially scheduled for April 18, citing fear of arrest.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Saturday at the national integration conference, Oshiomhole said Ododo\u2019s \u201crescue\u201d of Bello and the former governor\u2019s refusal to show up in court, constitutes a breach of the law.<\/p>\n
The conference which had \u2018Revisiting the national question: Nigeria\u2019s elusive search for national integration\u2019 as its theme, was organised by the Kukah Centre.<\/p>\n
The senator also urged citizens to speak up against breaches of the law \u2014 irrespective of who is involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are afraid, given the fact that you are very vocal, you are independent, you cannot be dismissed, you cannot be promoted or demoted\u2026 if you are afraid to mention the name of a former governor who breached the law and a sitting governor who used his immunity to cover a governor that lost immunity, where will the courage come from?\u201d Oshiomhole said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sophistry of saying we can name the child of a poor man who steal(s) a goat but we are afraid to mention the name of a big man who breached the law, that for me is at the root of our problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bello had also allegedly paid $760,910 in advance fees to the American International School Abuja (AISA) for five of his children from the coffers of the Kogi state government.<\/p>\n
The children are in grade levels 2 to 8 at the school.<\/p>\n
Oshiomhole said during his spell as Edo governor, his colleagues denied children of the poor access to education.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a former governor, I was a member of the national economic council (NEC) where some state governors argued that they did not have the resources to pay 50 percent subsidy in order to ensure that the children of the poor go to school even when those governors are sending their own children abroad,\u201d Oshiomhole added.<\/p>\n
The former Edo governor said leaders must possess the political will to implement laws they enact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I consider to be the most important investment, namely, that never should a child be born in this country and be denied access to go to school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo north, has faulted Usman Ododo, governor of Kogi, for his interference in the saga involving Yahaya Bello and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The EFCC has accused Bello, immediate-past governor of Kogi, of money laundering and corruption to the tune of N80.2 billion. On April 17, EFCC operatives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":29439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[223],"class_list":["post-29438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","tag-efcc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29440,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29438\/revisions\/29440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}