Abuja — Erstwhile Governor of Kogi State, Abubakar Audu, Thursday, ran before the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, begging it to invoke its powers and stop the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, from arresting him.
The embattled ex-Governor approached the court shortly after the anti-graft agency declared him wanted today.
EFCC had in a statement it issued launched fresh man-hunt for the former Governor over alleged offences bordering on conspiracy, stealing and misappropriation of public funds.
The commission, via the said statement signed by its Acting Head on Media and Publicity, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, said its action, "followed the failure of the suspect to respond to invitation", stressing that, "attempt by the EFCC to arrest Audu at his 32, Sulaiman Barau Street , Asokoro, Abuja residence on December 11, 2012 failed as he allegedly evaded arrest."
Specifically, Audu was accused of fraudulently enriching himself to the tune of over N4 billion while he held sway as governor of Kogi State between 1999 and 2003.
The move to arrest him followed a Supreme Court ruling of November 23, 2012, which gave the EFCC the nod to go ahead and prosecute the former Governor, after the apex court dismissed appeal seeking to abort his trial, as substantially lacking in merit.
Consequently, EFCC, yesterday, implored "anyone having useful information about the whereabouts of the suspect to notify its offices in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Lagos , Kano and Enugu or report at the nearest police station."
Meanwhile, in a counter move, the former Governor, through an originating summons that was entered by his lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, urged the high court to put an end to what he termed "an abuse of court process" by the EFCC.
Contending that the action of the agency in declaring him wanted was baseless, Audu, told the court that there was no need to commence any fresh process of investigation and or prosecution against him in respect of his tenure as Governor of Kogi state between May, 1999 and May, 2002, since he had already been charged on an - 80 count charge still pending at the High Court of Lokoja, Kogi state.
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I can't stop laughing at some news stories from Nigeria. We all know the income potential of a State Governor unless he has big corporations and known history of wealth and or Charity organization, how could he become overnight billionaires or millionaire stuffed with massive lifestyle except he is turning the peoples treasury to his piggy bag ? I have lived in this country in the past donkey years, even before many of these governors were born. I know the nation's tax paying culture as a result population poverty , how can a governor exhibit such income in terms of bank deposits and propensity to consume above 2000 % of his total income for all the years of his position except he's robbing the peoples money allocation from Federation account ? This go to the core of my question again and again .Why has Jonathan been reluctant to bring in the death penality to reduce incidence of leaders living beyond their means ? Think about what it means to loot and robb the meagre income of the people coming in solely from Federal handout, you have to be simply heartless to robb such money especially from the people you see everyday in the same community you live and grow up with . It is not like here in Canada or the U.S, Britain where citizens come from every different parts of the world. I will make it mandatory to have banks , and money houses give out information about government authorities depositing or living far beyond potential income, that's how Canada is run , that is how many developed nations are managed to have every member of the community participate in looking after the overall interest of the nation . I will immediately put the death penality in place to discourage debilitating loot and economic carnage which is still in our books as economic crime against the state of Nigeria. This is my major rejection of Jonathan's regime as regime only good for dogs and animals. Freedom and Democracy is dependent moment of wisdom, knowledge and ability to chose. A leader is presumed to teach , know how to use his intelligence to lead his subjects or get out to let those who have the attributes do the job and take the responsibility when they breach the convention between them and the people . A lawless community is not good in the eyes of God , nor is it good for sane community. Nigeria government is extreme leader in lawlessness , the members and citizens have learnt to become extremely lawless to cope with hunger and deprivation in the midst of plenty. Even to this date, there's no strong commitment to reduce or stop the maylay by this administration except different strokes with no serious teeth. The result to the culture of hopelessness is social insecurity which come with fear and desperate random kidnapping , killing for pay , rape and every known historical outcome in a hopeless regime . The answer have moved from repair by same distrusted government to absolute disolution and overhall in such incompetent leadership for any form of peoples forgiveness and Change agents to emerge through the ashes of what was lost.I could not understand it when the same rampaging governors from some of the states, including Ibori and the current one on run had the audacity to tell the nation they can not afford to pay the new salary of $100.00 per day to citizens with whom they buy from the same market and drive or walk along the same wrecked road.