{"id":443873,"date":"2011-06-19T15:45:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T15:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/19\/bankoles-colleagues-may-escape-prosecution\/"},"modified":"2011-06-19T15:45:44","modified_gmt":"2011-06-19T15:45:44","slug":"bankoles-colleagues-may-escape-prosecution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/19\/bankoles-colleagues-may-escape-prosecution\/","title":{"rendered":"Bankole&#8217;s Colleagues May Escape Prosecution"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"93.1803278689\">\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independentngonline.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daily Independent<\/a> (Lagos)<\/p>\n<p>Alexandra Mede And Sola Shittu<\/p>\n<p>18 June 2011<\/p>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p>Abuja \u2014 Immediate past principal officers of the House of Representatives who served with former Speaker Dimeji Bankole may not be roped into the series of corruption charges currently faced by Bankole and his former deputy, Usman Nafada.<\/p>\n<p>The revelation came on the heels of outcry in certain quarters that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should have arrested and prosecuted all the former principal officers and management staff of the National Assembly who may have been privy to the alleged criminal acts.<\/p>\n<p>Investigations by Sunday Independent, however, revealed that most of them have already been interrogated by the EFCC and may be used as prosecuting witnesses against the two accused who were granted bail during the week.<\/p>\n<p>Sources had last week informed this weekly that top management staff of the National Assembly, including the Clerk, Abubakar Maikasuwa, and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Sanni Omolori, alleged to be statutorily responsible for contracts awarded by Bankole, may also serve as prosecuting witnesses.<\/p>\n<p>While asking the court during the week to quash the case against him, Bankole had disclosed that based on the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, it was not his statutory responsibility to account for contracts awarded by the NASS.<\/p>\n<p>He alleged through his lawyers that his prosecutors had demonised him in the perception of right thinking members of the society on an issue he ought not to have been held responsible.<\/p>\n<p>His argument was that he was never, by law or practice, a staff of the NASS under Section 9 of the National Assembly Service Commission Act or in the Public Service of the Federation under the existing Act.<\/p>\n<p>Taking cognisance of this, he told the court that he was, therefore, neither the accounting officer nor the procurement officer under the Act and questioned on which platform he was being accused of inflating contract sums.<\/p>\n<p>EFCC sources said although Bankole and Nafada were turning &#8220;a purely criminal issue into political persecution&#8221;, the commission would pursue the case to its logical conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>The EFCC is prosecuting both the Speaker and his deputy on corruption charges involving alleged contract inflation and unauthorised bank loans amounting to N40 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday Independent investigations revealed that an earlier invitation by the EFCC to some of the NASS management staff forced the NASS leadership to convene an emergency meeting within the week to discuss the situation.<\/p>\n<p>It was learnt that both Maikasuwa and Omolori were among the top officials of NASS bureaucracy who had earlier been interrogated by EFCC; and that during the interrogations, the two officers were asked to prepare to serve as prosecution witnesses in the trial of Bankole and Nafada.<\/p>\n<p>Some members of the House, however, believe that such a development would present a dangerous twist in the unfolding drama such that the image of the House both now and in future would be completely damaged.<\/p>\n<p>A member of the House told our correspondent: &#8220;If any of them agrees to the idea of serving as a prosecution witness, then I can tell you the worst would happen to the institution of the National Assembly, and that includes the National Assembly Bureaucracy, the Senate and the House of Representatives put together.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I expect that the current leadership of the National Assembly, particularly the highly-respected Senate president and chairman of the National Assembly, David Mark, should not allow this to happen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am aware that a meeting of National Assembly leadership and heads of National Assembly bureaucracy has been held. We need to hold more of such meetings and come out strongly against any thing that is capable of shattering whatever remains of the image of the National Assembly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>EFCC sources confirmed that the submissions of both clerks sufficiently indicted Bankole and Nafada, and that the commission now has more than enough documented evidence to facilitate the prosecution of the duo.<\/p>\n<p>When Sunday Independent contacted EFCC spokesman, Femi Babafemi, he declined comment, insisting that he would not comment on a case already before the court.<\/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>Follow this link:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/201106190015.html\" title=\"Bankole's Colleagues May Escape Prosecution\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bankole&#8217;s Colleagues May Escape Prosecution<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Daily Independent (Lagos) Alexandra Mede And Sola Shittu 18 June 2011 Abuja \u2014 Immediate past principal officers of the House of Representatives who served with former Speaker Dimeji Bankole may not be roped into the series of corruption charges currently faced by Bankole and his former deputy, Usman Nafada. The revelation came on the heels of outcry in certain quarters that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should have arrested and prosecuted all the former principal officers and management staff of the National Assembly who may have been privy to the alleged criminal acts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":443610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-443873","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>Bankole&#039;s Colleagues May Escape Prosecution - 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\/19\/bankoles-colleagues-may-escape-prosecution\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Bankole&#039;s Colleagues May Escape Prosecution - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Daily Independent (Lagos) Alexandra Mede And Sola Shittu 18 June 2011 Abuja \u2014 Immediate past principal officers of the House of Representatives who served with former Speaker Dimeji Bankole may not be roped into the series of corruption charges currently faced by Bankole and his former deputy, Usman Nafada. 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