It’s no longer news that the former Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello have been having running battle with the Economic and Financial Crime Commission(EFCC) under the president Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s administration since the later assumed office.
He was accused of diverting Kogi state money in 2015, almost Six months before he became Governor of the state. When this narration failed, the EFCC sought for an amendment just to get at their target. He was declared wanted and labeled a criminal even before his trial, even when the law holds that every accused persons are presumed innocent until a court of competent jurisdiction declares otherwise.
Those who are familiar with the countdown to the February 2023 presidential election and it’s outcome given the role played by Bello and others to ensure victory for the president, had thought otherwise to wit; that anti-corruption agency should have threaded the part of honour and caution by following the due process, without necessarily interfering with the case. But unfortunately, those who ordinarily should show the light chose to be silent .
The people in this category were quick to recall the role played by Bello against all odds which contributed immensely to the victory of the president in the February 2023 presidential election.
They highlighted these contributions to include; collapsing his structure for President Tinubu, his fight against the Naira Redesign, which was clearly a ploy by those around Former president Muhammodu Buhari, to frustrate Tinubu’s emergency as president alongside his other colleagues governor.
They noted also that as the director of youth mobilization for the election, he was able to organize the Youths to support the election of President Tinubu, given Bello’s large Youth followership across the country.
On the issue of the Naira redesign policy, Bello noted that it was ill-managed, ill-implemented and ill-timed.
Even though he was one of the closest Governors to former president Buhari, he was against this policy which he felt was designed to truncate the 2023 election and possibly foist an interim Government in Nigeria.
Former Governors Bello of Kogi State, Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, had on February 5, 2023, dragged the Buhari led Federal Government to court over the naira redesign and cash withdrawal policies, following tension in the country resulting from the deadline issued by the CBN under Godwin Emefiele for the stoppage of the use of the old naira notes.
The former governors had argued that the demonetisation policy by the CBN was not in compliance with extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), the CBN Act 2007, and other laws on the subject and the court held that the Governors were right on point. This move had emboldened Tinubu, who then was an ordinary candidate of the APC.
Bello had said the aim of the court battle was to ensure that the President, Buhari finished the rest of his term in strong fashion, adding that the governors approached the court after attempts had been made to think through the policy.
He contended: President Buhari is winding down, people like us, we want him to finish very strong. And so, a policy came up that is ill-managed, ill-implemented and ill-timed, that is ravaging this country, affecting the common man, and everyone in this country, affecting the economy, affecting the smooth-running of our states. We swore to protect lives and livelihoods in our states, and this policy is impeding on that.
“Hence, we had to, after various attempts, we had no other option than to go to court. And today we have been vindicated. The party has been vindicated, and Mr. President himself is appreciative of the decision of the Supreme Court.”
Bello had used the opportunity to appreciate governors of the APC, then Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, and the Supreme Court, noting that the ruling of the apex court was not just about the redesign policy, but had also touched the democracy of the country, and had laid the foundation for conversations bordering on restricting and true fiscal federalism.
Segun Showunmi, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also alleged recently that President Tinubu has “betrayed” some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who supported him during the 2023 elections.
In a statement issued Showunmi, a former PDP governorship aspirant in Ogun state, alleged that the president is behind the travails of Bello, former governor of Kogi state.
Another issue that readily come to mind is Bello’s resistance of the narrative about the COVID-19 pandemic, which the former governor described as a scam.
Bello declared that they wanted to use the (COVID-19) vaccines to introduce the disease that will kill the people . God forbid!”
The former Governor as as someone who doesn’t give up easily about his conviction, stood his ground and ensured that the COVID-19 narrative was dimistified in Kogi State.
He hinged his criticism of the infamous COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out in nearly 50 countries globally on the speed at which they were developed.
“These vaccines are being produced in less than one year of COVID-19. There is no vaccine yet for HIV, malaria, cancer and for several diseases that are killing us. We should draw our minds back to what happened in Kano during the polio vaccines that crippled and killed our children. We have learned our lessons.
“If they say they are taking the vaccines in the public allow them take their vaccines. Don’t say I said you should not take it but if you want to take it open your eyes before you take the vaccines,” Bello had warned .
Even medical experts agreed that Vaccines typically take at least a decade to develop, test and manufacturing according to scientists. It took 18 years for scientists to successfully develop a vaccine against polio.
But the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were developed at breakneck speed in less than a year to become the fastest ever in human history, had raised serious concern then.
According to researchers, the only difference between the COVID-19 vaccines and their predecessors is the use of the genetic material mRNA which is easy to make in a laboratory.
Before now, vaccines typically use a weakened version of the pathogen or a protein piece of it and because these are grown in eggs or cells, developing and manufacturing vaccines takes a long time.
Bello had also backed his argument with an analogy of varying temperatures between Nigeria and other climes, saying that “what is applicable over there may not work in Nigeria.
“We don’t need to participate in this marketing of COVID-19 vaccine. We should channel the money we want use to buy the vaccines to other things. The Presidential Task Force (PTF) should give the right advice to the president.”
The former governor also said “it is better to invest in tackling more deadly diseases that are killing people everyday, not COVID-19 that has 99.9 per cent recovery rate.”
Bello had in one instance described the deadly disease as a hoax, some people later agreed with him.
Despite glaring evidence of acute under-testing for coronavirus in Kogi, Bello last December claimed a widespread testing campaign was undertaken in his state and nobody had been infected.
“After the earlier misunderstanding we had with the federal health officials and the NCDC, we later allowed them to step in and test people,” he said in an interview aired on Channels TV last December.
“After one month of intensive testing by their workers and officials, not one single person tested positive. The NCDC (Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control), ministry of health and my state incident management team went around. They went to institutions, market places, motor parks, streets, villages, towns and cities and not one single individual was confirmed positive. When students were resuming schools, we carried out tests on both indigenes and non-indigenes, and there has never been one single positive test.”
B: How EFCC is misleading the world on Yahaya Bello’s case – Ex-Gov’s aides
The Media Office of former Governor Yahaya Bello has released the statement below to debunk claims by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that it did not violate a valid order of a court in its handling of the case involving the former governor.
READ THE FULL STATEMENT BELOW.
1. Our attention has been drawn to a publication/press statement issued by one Wilson Uwujaren, Ag. Director, Public Affairs of the EFCC.
2. Mr Uwujaren, whom we strongly believe is not a lawyer, attempted (albeit disingenuously) to spin the EFCC’s way out of their now established position as a lawless Government agency in Nigeria. Unfortunately for Mr. Uwujaren and the EFCC, records/documents do not lie, Court documents have dates and times of filing, including dates and time of payment, which are endorsed on the face of the Court processes.
3. In paragraph 3 of the Publication, the EFCC stated that they invited Alhaji Yahaya Bello immediately after his tenure ended on the 27th of January 2024. We challenge the EFCC to publish a copy of the invitation delivered to Yahaya Bello. They should also tell Nigerians the date the alleged invitation was delivered and to whom it was delivered. We are certain that the EFCC will not be able to produce any of the foregoing as, to date, they have yet to invite Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
4. Indeed, just about the end of his administration, several online news sites published that the EFCC would arrest the Governor as soon as he handed over power to his successor as they intended to charge him for alleged crimes committed as Governor of Kogi State.
5. True to the stories, the EFCC, on the 5th day of February 2023, in an ongoing trial of other persons in Charge No. FHC/ABJ/CR/550/22 before Honourable Justice J.K. Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, amended the Charge to include in Count 1 thereof, the allegation that Yahaya Bello conspired with others, including a Kogi State Government House Cashier, in September 2015, to convert the sum of 80 Billion.
6. In the said amended Charge, filed by Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, an EFCC operative and Special Assistant to the President on Financial Crimes and Public Prosecution Compliance, Yahaya Bello was described as (still at large), meaning that he was already on the run when he was never invited.
7. It must be noted that as of September 2015, when he was said to have conspired with a Kogi State Government official and others to convert 80 Billion Naira, he was not yet the Governor of Kogi State (having assumed office on the 27th day of January 2016) and never had any financial transaction with the Kogi State Government.
8. Assuming without conceding that the EFCC made a mistake in the date of the alleged crime and that the correct date was 2016, the total approved Budget for Kogi State in 2016 when he became Governor was Ninety Nine Billion, Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eight Million, Six Hundred and Seventy-Four Thousand, Two Hundred and Sixty-One Naira (N99,998,674,261) while the total expenditure in the audited Financial Statements stood at Eighty One Billion, Three Hundred and Ninety-Eight Million, Eight Hundred and Twenty-Seven Thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Naira (N81,398,827,854). It was thus impossible for Yahaya Bello to have converted the sum alleged and at the time alleged. Worse still, the Commission said in its fresh Charge that this offence was now committed in February 2016, less than one month after the former Governor assumed office.
9. The news of the inclusion of his name in the Charge, as usual, was given wide publicity by the EFCC, who still had not invited him but had described him as being at large. It was thus clear from the foregoing that the EFCC was out for mischief. A stage was being set to move in a Gestapo manner to his home, lay siege there and violently arrest him with the aim of tarnishing his name and ruining his reputation as if he were a fugitive even though he was not invited.
10. For the protection of his reputation, rights to presumption of innocence, liberty, and dignity of the human person, Bello, as a law-abiding citizen, caused to be filed a Fundamental Rights Enforcement action in Suit No. HCL/68M/2024 between Alhaji Yahaya Bello v. Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on the 8th day of February 2024, at the High Court of Justice, Kogi State.
11. The belief of the imminent dramatic arrest, which eventually occurred on the 17th of April 2024 in Abuja, was indeed predicted in paragraph 36(c) of the Affidavit in Support of the Originating Summons filed on the 8th of February 2024.
12. Upon the above facts, particularly that he was to be investigated, invited, arrested, or prosecuted on an impossible allegation, the High Court granted him reprieve by restraining the EFCC from inviting, arresting, and prosecuting him, pending the determination of the Originating Motion for the enforcement of his fundamental rights. The said Order was served on the EFCC on the 12th day of February 2024.
13. Two Senior Lawyers participated in the Fundamental Rights Proceeding at the High Court, i.e. Rotimi Oyedepo SAN as an informant in the Counter-Affidavit and one J.S Okutepa SAN later filed processes and argued the matter on behalf of the EFCC. Indeed, J.S Okutepa SAN, on the 26th day of February 2024, appealed against the said Order to the Court of Appeal.
14. The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, adjourned the Appeal to 22nd April 2024 while refusing to hear the application for a stay of the order of interim injunction.
15. It is pertinent to note that every Court has the inherent power to grant orders to protect the subject matter of the suit before it to ensure that by the time judgment is delivered, the suit before it has not been rendered useless by a party who has resulted to self-help. This was the aim of the Order of that Court!
16. The EFCC has argued that the Court cannot restrain the EFCC from arresting, investigating, or prosecuting. This is far from the truth as the Court of Appeal in OKEKE v. IGP & Ors (2022) LPELR-58476(CA) 1 at Pp. 9 paras. A, Per NWOSU-IHEME, J.C.A relied on a decision of the Court to hold that the Police can be restrained from the improper use of its powers.
Specifically, the Court held as follows:
In the unreported case of LUNA V. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE RIVER STATE POLICE COMMAND in Appeal No CA/PH/216/2004, this Court Port-Harcourt Division held:
“… Notwithstanding the power of the Police as spelt out in Sections 4 and 24 of the Police Act, where this Power is improperly used, the Court can stop the use of the power for that improper purpose, as that would no longer be covered by Section 35(1) (c) of the 1999 Constitution. In other words, an order restraining the Police from arresting on some particular occasion or for some particular improper purpose may be made by the Court.”
17. Despite the clear Order of the Court, which the EFCC appealed against, these two Senior Advocates, Rotimi Oyedepo SAN and J.S Okutepa SAN, who participated in the proceeding of the trial Court and who knew that there was an extant Order restraining the EFCC from inviting, arresting, detaining and prosecuting Alhaji Yahaya Bello, caused to be filed at the Federal High Court, Abuja-FCT, a Charge No. FHC/ABJ/CR/98/2024 against Yahaya Adoza Bello on the 6th day of March 2024.
18. By filing the Charge, the EFCC violated the Order of the interim order of the High Court of Justice of Kogi State which was still extant and subsisting and which effectively prohibited the EFCC from prosecuting Alhaji Yahaya Bello! This was, in this case, the 1st disobedience to Court Order!
19. It must be further noted that despite the new charge, the EFCC still alleged that the 80 Billion was allegedly embezzled within one month of his being in office as Governor.
20. Mr Uwujaren, on behalf of the EFCC, has cleverly avoided the interim order of the Court, which the EFCC flouted. Rather, he has painted the scenario as if the only order the High Court of Kogi State made was the final Judgement of the Court, which he has reproduced extensively and which was only read out at 12:00 Noon on the 17th day of April 2024.
21. Let it be clear that as of 12:00 noon on the 17th day of April 2024, the interim order of injunction restraining the EFCC from arresting, inviting, detaining, or prosecuting Alhaji Yahaya Bello was still extant as the Court had yet to finish delivering the judgment which Mr Uwujaren selectively reproduced in his epistle.
22. It therefore follows that the attempt to arrest Alhaji Yahaya Bello on the 17th Day of April 2024 was a violation of the Order of the High Court of Justice of Kogi State granted on 9th February 2024. This was the 2nd disobedience to the Court.
23. Indeed, the Officers of the EFCC who had been loitering around the Zone 4 residence of Alhaji Yahaya Bello since about 7:00 am on the 17th of April 2024 were shown the Order and they were informed that they were on illegal duty, it was based on the foregoing that the EFCC hurriedly proceeded to file an Ex-parte Motion at the Federal High Court Abuja at about 8:24 am praying the Court for a Warrant of Arrest against the Alhaji Yahaya Bello despite the pendency of the Order of the Kogi State High Court of Justice. This was indeed the third act of disobedience!!!
24. Mr Uwujaren has cleverly but falsely tried to portray that it was after the Judgment of the Kogi State High Court of Justice of 17th April 2024 that the EFCC filed the Charge against Yahaya Bello and obtained the Ex-parte the Warrant for his arrest, this is absolutely false given that the Charge was filed over a month before the Judgment and the Motion Ex-parte was filed at 8:24 am on the morning of the day of arrest, i.e. 17th April 2024 and when they were already in his home.
25. From the above, Nigerians can also see that Mr Uwujaren’s statement that it was the attempt to enforce the warrant of the Federal High Court that took them to Zone 4 is absolutely false as they were already in Alhaji Yahaya Bello’s House to arrest him before they filed the application for Warrant of Arrest!!! Nigerians watched live!
26. It must also be noted that the EFCC never produced the Warrant they obtained at Yahaya Bello’s Residence before they dispersed.
It was only in the news at about 4 pm that we read of a Warrant of Arrest obtained by the EFCC for the arrest of Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
27. It must also be clarified, contrary to the Claims of the EFCC, that the implication of the Judgment of the High Court of Kogi State, Lokoja, was that Alhaji Yahaya Bello should not be invited, arrested, and detained on any allegation of corruption unless the Leave of a Superior Court of Record is sought and obtained to that effect by the EFCC.
The EFCC should know that the leave referred to in that Judgment is not a Warrant of arrest and certainly not one applied for or obtained before the Judgment! Indeed, the Warrant was obtained in disobedience of the Order of the Kogi State High Court of Justice which restrained them from arresting Alhaji Yahaya Bello! This is indeed disobedience number four!
28. The attempt by the EFCC through Mr Uwujaren to distort the facts and timelines of events is to allow the EFCC to forge on to rely on the illegally obtained Warrant of Arrest. The Warrant is not only illegal because it was obtained in contravention of an order of the Court but also because the Court was misled into granting the same as the Court lacked the jurisdiction to grant same.
29. By the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, a Warrant can only be issued against a suspect (a fleeing suspect or one who is likely to flee).
*Evergreen Okogene writes from Lokoja,Kogi State.
