The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has invited the immediate past president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, over allegations of theft and money laundering.
The incident reportedly occurred, yesterday afternoon in Abuja, shortly after Saraki attended the wedding ceremony of daughter of one of his loyalists and Third Republic Kwara State governor, Senator Shaba Lafiagi.
According to reports, Saraki was arrested after being accused of using several proxy companies to launder money, when he was governor.
But denying the arrest, EFCC Spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said contrary to reports, the former governor merely honoured the commission’s invitation.
“It is true he was invited and he responded, but there are no details at the moment,” he said.
It was reported that the suspected proxies, who executed some alleged contracts for Kwara State under Saraki, allegedly made returns to him for many years.
The funds involved were huge, running into hundreds of millions in naira and hundreds of thousands in foreign currencies at various times.
Anti-graft investigators had obtained a list of the proxy companies involved and analysed a pattern of suspicious transactions between them and Saraki,
Just two weeks ago, the agency told a Federal High Court, Abuja, that the former Senate President’s action had been hindering the agency from probing him.The EFCC had, in 2019, said it would probe Saraki’s earnings between 2003 and 2011, when he was governor of Kwara. The commission was reported to have seized some of his houses in the Ikoyi area of Lagos then. (Guardian)