EFCC sponsoring fake petition against Goje, lawyer alleges

Posted by admin Corruption Politics, Gombe, Governors, Headlines, National Politics, State News Friday, July 12th, 2019

James Abraham, Jos

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Paul Erokoro, has alleged that the petition which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission used to prosecute the former Governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje, over N25bn fraud charge was fake.

Erokoro, who was counsel for Goje, also debunked rumours that the former governor traded his political ambition in exchange for his freedom from the corruption case brought against him by the EFCC.

Erokoro said, “The question is why did the attorney general decide to take over the case from the EFCC in the first place? To understand this, let’s go back a little bit. This charge was filed at the material time because the then chairman of the EFCC, Mrs Farida Waziri was not happy with Senator Goje for reasons best known to her.

“The petition which the EFCC used to file the charges against the former governor was written in 2006 but the EFCC first minuted on it in 2011. Can you imagine an anti-graft agency receiving a petition in 2006 and for five years without doing anything on it only to minute on it when he left office.

“Even the EFCC admitted that they were never able to find the petitioner; that the addresses the petitioner gave could not be verified and finally, none of the issues raised in the petition find its way into the criminal charges as it were. Obviously, that petition was fake.”

Erokoro said the decision by the Attorney General to take over the case from the EFCC and the ruling by the court in favour of his client actually saved the Federal Government from embarrassment after discovering that the petitions that necessitated the case in the first place were fake.

-Punchwp_posts