Many of the debtors of the sick banks who were to meet with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday, shunned the meeting, even as the anti-graft agency has resorted to secret interrogation of the debtors.

Journalists that besieged the Lagos zonal headquarters of the commission to witness the interrogation of the alleged 55 bank debtors of non-performing loans went home disappointed as none of the high profile debtors showed up at the office of the anti-graft agency after over eight hours of waiting.

Speaking to Daily Champion on phone, spokesman of the agency, Mr. Femi Bababfemi said some of the debtors actually came but were attended to at a secret location, saying the agency was deliberately shielding the debtors from the media.

He said some of them have actually agreed to pay something today. He neither disclosed the amount the said debtors agreed to pay nor the identity of the debtors that honored the invitation.

Babafemi, who described the secret interrogation away from the EFCC's office as a new strategy of the anti-graft agency, said the new method was adopted so as not to scare the debtors.

He said top officials of three of the affected banks were also interviewed yesterday by the anti-graft agency. He did not disclose the name of the banks or the identity of those interviewed

Meanwhile, lawyers to former managing director of Platinum Habbib Bank (BankPHB), Mr. Francis Atuche have described his ongoing detention by the EFCC as unconstitutional and a breach of his right to personal freedom.

Daily Champion recalls that Atuche was last Friday arrested by the anti-graft agency along with a stock broker, Mr. Peter Ololo for allegedly granting non-performing loans and unsecured loans.

Atuche was among the three bank chiefs sacked on Friday, October 2, as a result of huge non-performing loans allegedly found in their banks' books, granting unsecured loans as well as weak corporate governance practices.

In the application for administration bail jointly signed by his counsel Chief Anthony Idigbe, Chief Niyi Anthony and Mr. Rickey Tarfa, they asked the anti-graft agency to admit him to bail pending when it is ready to charge him to a court of competent jurisdiction that will try him for whatever offence that is preferred against him.

The lawyers in the letter contended that their client has been detained beyond the constitutional limit of 48 hours within which the EFCC should have charged him to a law court, saying that he should be released with immediate effect to avoid trampling on his constitutional right to personal freedom and liberty.

Part of the letter read: "We are jointly retained as counsel to the above named person (our client) who has been in your custody since the morning hours of Friday October 16, 2009. We wish to draw your attention to the fact that under our constitution, except in very limited circumstances which do not apply in this case, no person should be detained for more than 48 hours without being released on bail or arraigned in a lawful court.

"We note that our client has been in your custody for a period longer than the above. We are therefore humbly applying that you kindly release him on bail pending such a time that you are ready to prefer charges against him, if any.

We further apply that he be released on self-recognizance or upon any other reasonable and practicable condition that you may in your discretion prescribe."