The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, failed to free the Chairman of Daar Communications Plc, High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, after meeting his bail conditions.
One of the conditions was for the media mogul to surrender his travel documents to the EFCC and produce two directors in the Federal Civil Service as sureties, a condition he met earlier today, according to his lawyers.
His lawyer, Mr. Mike Ozekhome, said they were shocked to be told that the agency had secured a holding warrant from a magistrate’s court to keep his client in detention after perfecting his bail conditions.
“We got the two sureties today (yesterday) and we were ready to meet all the bail conditions before the EFCC told us they were able to get a holding charge warrant from a magistrate.”
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, said a magistrate has no powers to issue a holding charge warrant.
He also said neither Chief Dokpesi nor himself had been made aware of any charges yet.
“We are yet to know the charges levelled against Chief Dokpesi and he himself has told me that no charges were preferred against him,” he said.
Apart from Daar Communications boss, Chief Raymond Dokpesi; former Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda and former Sokoto State Governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, there were many other key suspects detained in EFCC cells in connection with the $2billion arms deal.
It was learnt that while some of the suspects such as Shuaibu Salihu, who was Director of Finance in the office of the National Security Adviser and 19 others had been in detention for over a week, Dokpesi, Bafarawa and Yuguda joined the suspects only this week.
By law, they are expected to be released or charged to court within 48 hours.
Mindful of the position of the law, a top source in the commission told Vanguard last night that the agency might approach a court to seek an order to further detain the high profile suspects.
“The aim is to give them time to speak out on why they received huge public funds from the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, and what such curious payments were meant for, especially as the recipients are not security men or security contractors,” a source said.
Credit : Vanguard
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