The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has confirmed the detention of a former Minister of State for Power Olu Agunloye days after he was declared wanted.
Recall that the EFCC had about a week ago declared Agulonye who served in the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo wanted over an alleged $6 billion fraud related to the controversial Mambilla hydropower project.
“He has been with the EFCC since December 13th,” the source said. “But it was not made public.”
“The public is hereby notified that Olu Agunloye, whose photograph appears above, is wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in an alleged case of corruption and forgery,” the agency wrote on its social media platforms.
It urged anyone “with useful information as to his whereabouts” to contact the agency. The EFCC had in September questioned the former minister over the same issue.
Agunloye was a minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government (1999-2003). He has been at the centre of the controversy about the Mambilla project.
Obasanjo had accused him of fraudulently awarding the contract for the project without the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval. But Agunloye denied the accusations and claimed the former president was distorting facts.
Agunloye’s most recent travails have continued to generate reactions from Nigerians. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is the latest to comment on the matter.
In a Monday statement, he captioned “In pursuit of justice, productivity, under the rule of law,” Soyinka questioned the agency’s action.
“The immediate provocation for these reflections is the ongoing predicament of a former Minister of Power, Dr. Olu Agunloye, currently detained by the EFCC, in total contempt of sense and justice, or indeed, basic humane considerations. We shall not go into the merit or demerits of the charges raised against him over a 16-year-old project that bears the name Mambilla. –that is the business of the law courts,” Soyinka wrote.
He said, “Agunloye, as a dutiful citizen, issued a statement on his visibility and ready compliance. He promised to show up at the EFCC offices in Abuja the following day. He appeared, and was promptly arrested and detained. The information I have been able to obtain during the past two days of my return to the country is that the head of the EFCC declared that he would release him only on the instructions of the President of the nation.
“True or false? I am not in the game of “He said, I said. What matters is the murky exercise of power. I have had cause to intervene before this, all the way from Are, through Ribadu and Magu, that last until he stopped taking my calls. The present however transcends all other interventions, as it involves certain issues of national interest, in tandem with the evident issues of fundamental citizen rights.
“I wish to claim that finally, after many years of frustration, the nation was being offered an opportunity to put the Mambilla project to rest, be it through terminal abandonment or resuscitation, corralling its lessons in fulfilling one of the most basic conditions for national industrial development with private creative input – addressing frontally and holistically the basic question of sustainable supply of power. In addition – and I concede that this is a personal, yet national concern.’’
“Our concern at this moment is however only partially on the basis of individual fundamental human rights. Most fortuitously, the detention of any former public servant under circumstances such as Agunloye also provokes the question: how is public interest – such as the pursuit of justice – served by such an arbitrary exercise of power?’’
