Bankole: EFCC in emergency meeting

EFCC Chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has mapped out fresh strategies on how to arrest the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, SUNDAY PUNCH findings have revealed.
The commission, which rose from an emergency meeting on Friday, said it had also set up two teams to verify and ascertain Bankole’s properties in Lagos and Ogun states.
All unit heads at the Abuja headquarters of the EFCC attended the meeting.
SUNDAY PUNCH findings revealed that the teams were constituted and their members asked to go to the states immediately for the assignment.They were also mandated to ensure that all Bankole’s properties in the two states are properly identified as this could aid the prosecution of the Speaker. Our correspondent gathered that the EFCC chair, Farida Waziri, vowed to detain Bankole on Monday.
A reliable source at the EFCC who did not want to be mentioned said, “He has boxed himself to a corner. Now, he cannot afford to be on the defensive any longer. If he had honoured our invitation last week and come to the office himself, we would not have detained him. The maximum time he would have spent with us would have been one hour. But now that he wants to do it his way, he cannot escape detention. We are going to detain him.
“It is obvious that we have given him a long rope and we are eagerly waiting for him to honour his words that he will come to us on Monday by 12pm. If he does not come to us, we will go to him. What happened on Friday will not repeat itself.”
Following the commission’s resolve, surveillance around the Speaker and members of his family has been stepped up on Saturday.
The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Femi Babafemi, said, “We got information that he was planning to leave the country so we put him on our watch-list and he remains on it till he turns himself in or we arrest him.”
Bankole, who spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Bakare, however said, “Contrary to widespread speculations that the outgoing Speaker of House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, has been arrested or resisted EFCC arrest, the Speaker has informed officials of EFCC of his intention to honour their invitation on Monday June, 2011 at 2pm.”
The EFCC had launched an investigation into Bankole’s activities following a petition from a group, Youth Anti-Corruption League.
The group had called on the EFCC to investigate the N10bn loan controversy, Bankole’s role in the N2.3bn car scam, and the mismanagement of the N9bn capital budget of the House for 2008/2009.
Twice, Bankole had spurned the summons of the EFCC over the N10bn loan, the last of such invitations was Tuesday.
The outgoing speaker had written to the anti-graft commission, rescheduling the time to appear before the five-man panel of investigators probing into the alleged scam in the House.
Men of the anti-graft commission had invaded Bankole’s home following security reports that Bankole was preparing to flee to the United Kingdom and this prompted the operatives to mount surveillance in his residence around 8pm on Thursday night.
It was gathered that on sighting EFCC operatives, Bankole made frantic calls to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim, and other prominent Nigerians asking them to come to his aid.
This call was said to have prompted Ringim’s visit to Bankole’s house where he reportedly increased the security around the Speaker.
It was learnt that all attempts by the EFCC operatives to gain access to him were resisted by a detachment of policemen, including some members of the Police Mobile Force and a shoot-out between the policemen and EFCC members of staff was quickly nipped in the bud.
By Toyosi Ogunseye                                 Courtesy Of: Punch