Lawyer to ex-governor of Ekiti state, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), has said that the EFCC would be sued for a breach of fundamental human rights if it failed to release his client on Thursday (today).
The senior lawyer believes that the EFCC investigators ”want him [Fayose] to write a statement by force and then use the statement against him instead of using their own evidence.”
Fayose is still being interrogated by the commission, more than two days after he submitted himself to the anti-graft investigators in Abuja.
The former governor is being probed based on allegations he received N1.3bn from the Office of the National Security Adviser through the then Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro in 2014.
The funds were said to be part of the N4.7bn allegedly handed to Obanikoro by the then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.).
But it was learned that Fayose denied ever collecting such money. Lawyer to ex-governor Fayose, Mike Ozekhome, threatens legal action against EFCC over client’s detention
And Concise News understands that the EFCC has obtained a renewable remand order from a Federal High Court in Abuja to keep Fayose for two weeks.
However, Ozekhome wonders why the commission is keeping his client for more than 24 hours since, according to him, the EFCC began investigating Fayose more than two years ago.
"His lawyers will consider approaching the court for the enforcement of his fundamental human rights if he is not released on Thursday. Section 35 and 36 of the constitution are clear on this,” the senior lawyer told Punch.
"He is not a flight risk. He willingly submitted himself to the EFCC even earlier than the time he was supposed to come. What the EFCC is doing is nothing but media trial.”
Ozekhome also said, “From the way they have been chasing Fayose in the last three years, one would have expected that the EFCC would have completed its investigations and would arrest him immediately his tenure expires and charge him the next day but that is not the case.”