{"id":436539,"date":"2011-06-06T06:35:50","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T06:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/06\/anti-corruption-agency-arrests-ex-speaker-after-siege\/"},"modified":"2011-06-06T06:35:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T06:35:50","slug":"anti-corruption-agency-arrests-ex-speaker-after-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/06\/anti-corruption-agency-arrests-ex-speaker-after-siege\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Corruption Agency Arrests Ex-Speaker After Siege"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"112.576142132\">\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/img\/static\/publishers\/minibanners\/thisday180.jpg\" alt=\"This Day (Lagos)\" title=\"Visit This Day (Lagos)\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Onwuka Nzeshi<\/p>\n<p>6 June 2011<\/p>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p>Abuja \u2014 In a preemptive move Sunday night, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, ahead of his declaration to appear before the commission Monday, ending a week of running battles with the commission.<\/p>\n<p>THISDAY learnt that the arrest only pulled through after the agency had contacted the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim, and the Director-General of the State Security Services (SSS), Mr. Ita Ekpeyong, to withdraw their personnel attached to Bankole.<\/p>\n<p>The anti-graft agency said Bankole was plotting other schemes to thwart his voluntary surrender or arrest Monday. He is to remain in the EFCC custody to enable him have sufficient time to answer questions on the numerous fraud allegations against him.<\/p>\n<p>Bankole was arrested at his Asokoro, Abuja residence at about 8pm Sunday night after resisting arrest again for more than four hours.<\/p>\n<p>The commission in a statement signed by its Head of Media &#038; Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, said &#8220;the EFCC Chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri was compelled to order the immediate arrest of Mr. Bankole after analysing an intelligence report which showed that the former speaker was planning to leave Abuja for Lagos on Sunday evening and thereafter flee the country through an illegal route.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While our men kept surveillance around the former speaker hoping he will honour his promise to report on Monday, a fresh intelligence gathered by the commission showed that Bankole was not ready to keep his promise but was rather planning other schemes to escape from the country through an illegal route or obtain a restraining court order early on Monday to prevent the commission from effecting his arrest or prosecution,&#8221; the statement added.<\/p>\n<p>Bankole had twice shunned two invitations extended to him in the last two weeks by the EFCC, which climaxed last Friday when he resisted attempts by operatives to arrest him.<\/p>\n<p>The EFCC operatives had to be withdrawn after over five hours stand-off after a commitment from Bankole that he was going to surrender himself today.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Bankole Sunday made some startling revelations concerning the controversial N10 billion loan scam that rocked the House in the past couple of weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Bankole for the first time admitted that the loan was obtained to enable the House meet up with the jumbo salaries and allowances of its members including some principal officers.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Bakare, the former Speaker said contrary to media reports, he and his deputy Hon. Usman Bayero Nafada, never benefited from the increases in allowances that necessitated the taking of the loan.<\/p>\n<p>He however said that the other principal officers were beneficiaries of the loan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The former speaker and his deputy never benefited from the loan as they received only the old rate they have been receiving before the issue of increment was recommended by a 37 member committee and endorsed by an executive session of the House,&#8221; Bakare said.<\/p>\n<p>Available statistics showed that before the bogus increment, quarterly allowance to the office of the Speaker was N100 million while his deputy received N80 million.<\/p>\n<p>The loan, Bakare said, was distributed amongst other principal officers and the remaining members of the House.<\/p>\n<p>According to records made available to THISDAY, the Minority Whip, Deputy Minority Leader and Deputy Minority Whip that have been receiving N36million per quarter received an increment of N14million to make up N50million each while the rest of the members got an increment of N14 million on the usual N28 million per quarter, bringing the allowance due to the least member to N42million every quarter.<\/p>\n<p>The total sum shows that the increment amounted to N5.012billion per quarter and the loan was taken for two quarter amounting to N10.024billion including the compound interest rate charged by the bank.<\/p>\n<p>The loan was taken pursuant of an executive session decision of the House on Tuesday, March 30, 2010, where the report of a 37 member committee set up on March 25, 2010, to look into agitation of members for enhancement of running costs of members was adopted.<\/p>\n<p>In his reaction to the development, media aide to Bankole, Chief Kayode Odunaro, said the former speaker was not just arrested, but abducted from his house by the EFCC operatives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Following the abduction done under the cover of darkness at about 8.30pm, over 20 members of the out-gone House stormed the EFCC headquarters in Abuja to inquire about the abduction but were prevented from accessing the office.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Among them are former House Committee Chairmen on Works; Foriegn Affairs; and Inter- parliamentary Affairs, Hon Onyema Chukwuma, Hon Mohammed Bature and Hon Sada Soli respectively.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We view this desperation of EFCC to get Bankole at all cost before tomorrow (today) election of new leadership of the Green chamber as a political witch-hunt and vendatta aimed at coercing him to influence the outcome of the election of a new leadership for the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is patently against our nascent democracy and rule of law. The EFCC has already convicted Bankole on the pages of newspapers even before concluding its investigations and charging him to court.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<fieldset>\n<legend align=\"center\"><strong>More News on allAfrica.com<\/strong><\/legend>\n<\/fieldset>\n<p>AllAfrica &#8211; All the Time<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Continue Reading:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/201106060239.html\" title=\"Anti-Corruption Agency Arrests Ex-Speaker After Siege\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anti-Corruption Agency Arrests Ex-Speaker After Siege<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Onwuka Nzeshi 6 June 2011 Abuja \u2014 In a preemptive move Sunday night, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, ahead of his declaration to appear before the commission Monday, ending a week of running battles with the commission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":436540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-436539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Anti-Corruption Agency Arrests Ex-Speaker After Siege - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/06\/anti-corruption-agency-arrests-ex-speaker-after-siege\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Anti-Corruption Agency Arrests Ex-Speaker After Siege - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Onwuka Nzeshi 6 June 2011 Abuja \u2014 In a preemptive move Sunday night, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. 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