ABUJA—Former Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, has cried out that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and Department of State Service, DSS, want to arrest, detain and persecute him as they did to former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki retd.
Kuku alleged that the two government agencies were against him because of his defence of the Niger Delta and the role he played during the 2015 presidential election.
But the EFCC, in a swift reaction, asked Kuku to return home and answer charges against him, if his hands were clean.
Kuku in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, said: “I really fear for my life and I am suspicious that they want to give me the ‘Dasuki treatment’ by framing me up, arresting me and dumping me in detention indefinitely so as to keep me out of their way.
“I do not believe that I can get trial under the leadership of the EFCC and the DSS, given what they have already declared against me when there is no case in court against me. They are violating court orders and are not ready to give me fair treatment and I cannot, therefore, show up against them.”
You’ve case to answer —EFCC
But spokesman for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said that the commission wanted Kuku to come back home and face trial if his hands are clean and nothing more.
Uwujaren said in a statement: “For the avoidance of doubt, EFCC is investigating the Amnesty Office managed by Kuku. The commission was compelled to declare him wanted in July 2015 after he failed to honour an invitation sent to him for interrogation on July 28, 2015.
“Rather than appear before the team investigating the allegations of fraud against him, he sent a letter, through his counsel, Karina Tunyan, claiming that he ‘is currently in the United States of America to keep an appointment with his doctors,’ with a promise to appear on September 30, 2015. He never did, and his last known place of abode has remained the US, a different territorial jurisdiction.
“In February 2016, in a bid to forestall his arrest by the EFCC, Kuku approached a Federal High Court in Lagos, seeking to stop the agency from arresting him on his possible return to Nigeria. The trial judge, Justice Okon Abang, dismissed his application as lacking in merit, and upheld the statutory powers of the EFCC to investigate him