Saturday 12 January 2013

Soludo Fires Back: I Wasn’t Arrested, Merely Honoured EFCC’s Invitation


Prof-Charles-Soludo-360x225The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, reportedly arrested former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, but granted him bail later that same day. 24hrs later, the embattled Professor Soludo has come out to deny media reports that he was arrested by the Commission, adding that he had gone to the Abuja office of the anti-graft agency on Thursday “to make clarifications on some issues on a matter under investigation”.
A statement from Soludo’s media office in Abuja also said the former CBN governor went to the EFCC office of his own accord to honour the commission’s invitation and that he was neither arrested nor escorted to the office by operatives of the commission as was widely reported.
“We want to put it on record clearly that the media reports that Professor Chukwuma Soludo was arrested by the operatives of the EFCC in Abuja is totally false or written in error.
“The fact of the matter is that the EFCC wrote a letter to Prof. Soludo inviting him to their Abuja office on the 10th of January 2013. EFCC’s invitation letter to Prof. Soludo was dated 20th December 2012.
“Prof. Soludo was abroad attending to several international engagements when the letter was sent to his aides. As a law abiding citizen of the country, Prof. Soludo returned to Nigeria in the New Year and honoured EFCC invitation on January 10th as requested. He voluntarily went from his home to EFCC office on Thursday. He was neither arrested nor escorted by any operative of the Commission.”
However a top official of the anti-graft agency has disagreed with Soludo’s spokesman, adding that Soludo was indeed”on Thursday, arrested by the commission” and interrogated for several hours over complicity in allegations of underhand dealing in the award of contract for the printing of N20 polymer notes between 2006 and 2008.
InformationNigeria

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