‘‘I was in underground cell for 30 days’— Shehu Sani

By Toby Prince

Ex-lawmaker representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, has alleged that he was thrown into an underground cell after his arrest by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Sani spent 30 days in EFCC custody following his arrest on December 31.

He was accused of extorting $15,000 from one Sani Dauda in November 20, 2019, promising to give it to Ibrahim Muhammad, chief justice of Nigeria, to influence some pending cases in court.

Sani, who was released on Thursday after a court granted him bail, has vehemently denied the allegations.

In a statement on Saturday, Sani said while in custody, he was forced to declare his assets and subjected to “traumatising interrogations.”

“My incarceration for 30 days in the jail of EFCC was unfair, unjust and a clear breach of my fundamental rights and hence stands condemned. During my unjust stay in the EFCC cell, I was subjected to traumatizing interrogations – my houses and offices were searched,” he said.

“They compelled me to declare my assets, they tried to subject me to polygraph lie detector tests, my accounts were blocked, and my phone was seized, all in the name of fictional $24,000 or $25, 000 extortion.

“Any Information planted in the media by the EFCC spokesperson while I was in their custody about me is outrightly false and nothing but a bacterial and fungal infested concoctions, typical of their style.

“Our country will continue to be at the bottom strata of the Transparency International index as long as our anti-graft agencies only use their might and arsenal to crush ants while lacking the courage, the heart, and the liver to confront the snakes, the vultures and the hyenas of the ruling establishment. They can frame me, detain me but can’t silence me.

“In an ideal democratic state, all agencies of the government are obliged to operate within the dictates and the ambit of the rule of law or the nation leaps into tyranny.

“The rule book of Stalin, The manual of Hitler or road map of Mussolini should not be the guidance and the compass of the nation’s security and anti-corruption agencies in their quest to sanitize our country.”