Ike Ekweremadu, a troubled former Deputy Senate President, has claimed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is to blame for the refusal of his bail by British authorities. The Commission has responded to this claim.
Ekweremadu had previously stated to Justice Inyang Ekwo of an Abuja Federal High Court that the EFCC was to blame for his difficulties at the London Court, where he had been detained for allegedly harvesting organs.
The allegations made by the senator were contained in an application that he submitted to the federal high court in order to obtain an order from the court to set aside an interim order that had been granted in favor of the federal government for the forfeiture of forty of the senator’s properties, both domestic and foreign.
The EFCC, on the other hand, argued in its counter affidavit that the allegations made against it by Ekweremadu’s son demonstrated that he was not familiar with the criminal proceedings in the London court against his parents, which is why he believed the EFCC “has a hand in the predicament and travails of his parents.”
The EFCC stated that its July 18, 2022 letter to the Crown Prosecution Service, UK “was a mere routine to a counterpart government agency in accordance with the global best practice of information sharing with other law enforcement and other agencies in the USA and UK. The response of the respondent to the Crown Prosecution Service was never an instigation or encouragement to the Crown Prosecution Service to detain Senator Ike Ekweremadu or anyone else, as the respondent was neither linked to nor
“In the United Kingdom, both the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service are independent agencies that have a lot of leeway in how they carry out their duties and cannot be influenced by anyone, including the respondent.
“The respondent does share information and intelligence with other law enforcement agencies worldwide, including the Metropolitan Police of the United Kingdom, the FBI of the United States, and the KGB of Russia, as it is a foremost premier and flagship law enforcement agency.
It stated that Lloyd Ekweremadu’s “innuendoes, insinuations, speculations, and presumptions manifest in the aforementioned paragraphs of his affidavit are unfounded and unkind to the respondent.”
The EFCC argued that no law requires it to initiate forfeiture proceedings or criminal charges against a suspect within a specific number of years or a time frame. The EFCC claimed to have previously been investigating Ekweremadu for money laundering.
In addition, it stated that “the filing of the instant forfeiture proceedings was merely coincidental with the arrest of Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice N. Ekweremadu in the United Kingdom.”
Sylvanus Tahir, SAN, the EFCC’s attorney, countered by pleading that the case was not directed at Ekweremadu but rather at the property, which was already the subject of claims by a number of individuals and organizations.
In the meantime, the ruling has been postponed until January 25, 2019, by Justice Inyang Ekwo.