Vanguard learnt that in a bid to thwart the release of Lloyd on bail, EFCC operatives want to probe his tenure as majority leader of the Rivers House of Assembly and take steps to prosecute him with immediate effect.
The agents are likely to arrest Lloyd to answer some fraud-related charges over which he might be moved to Abuja for trial.
The EFCC has been ordered to file some fraud-related charges against Lloyd in order to prevent the state Attorney-General, who has powers to try him for attempted murder, from doing so.
It was also gathered that in a bid to nail the lawmaker, a crack team of EFCC operatives, had already arrived Port Harcourt and searched his home for ‘credible evidence’ in order to nail him.
Although it was not clear over which financial or economic matter Lloyd was being investigated by the anti-graft agency, it was learnt that the move was aimed at thwarting any move by the state to free him from prosecution over the attack on Michael Chinda.
A top Rivers State official lamented yesterday that it was painful that the Federal Government was playing dirty in a bid to jail Lloyd.
The source said: “They have brought in the EFCC to interrogate and investigate Chidi Lloyd, the House Leader. They want to take over the prosecution by ulterior means.
The government is trying to change the charge from attempted murder, which is under the state purview to fraud-related issues so as to use the EFCC to prosecute Lloyd in order to please some interested persons in Abuja.
“We fear that some desperate persons might have planted something in Lloyd’s house in order to use it against him and Governor Amaechi,” the source alleged.
But the EFCC said yesterday that its operatives were in Port Harcourt to probe Lloyd over an undisclosed ‘investigative matter’, adding that it was not under the instruction of anyone or institution to do its work.
Spokesman for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed the presence of the agency’s operatives in Port Harcourt with a view to probe Lloyd but did not say over which matter he was being investigated.
“Our operatives are actually in Rivers State over an ongoing investigation that involves Lloyd and others in a number of South-South states,” Uwujaren said.
Asked to give details of the probe, the spokesman said: “There are no details now because we don’t want to conduct the investigation on the pages of newspapers.”
Lloyd was transferred from the Police Headquarters in Abuja to the Rivers State Police Command, where he is being kept and prosecuted for attempting to kill his colleague for daring to attack him on July 9, 2013 during a failed bid to unseat the leadership of the 32-member House of Assembly.
Although the state Attorney General is expected by law to prosecute the matter for which he is being charged, a private legal practitioner is being used by the prosecution to try the Majority Leader, a development opposed by the state. The intervention of the EFCC is however seen as a dramatic twist to the trial, which is likely to take a new shape this week.
Source: Vanguard
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment