TheCable

Philip Elueme, head of the senator Peter Nwaoboshi media team (SPON), says the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is misrepresenting the facts about the serving legislator.

On Wednesday, the anti-graft agency said Nwaoboshi was intercepted by its operatives on February 6 at a Lagos hospital – alleging that he was evading a prison term.

The EFCC had arraigned Nwaoboshi and his two firms – Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd and Suiming Electrical Ltd — in 2018 before Mohammed Idris, a judge who was later elevated to the court of appeal.

They were accused of laundering N322 million in 2014.

The senator representing Delta north was convicted and sentenced to seven-year in prison in July 2022.

In a statement on Monday, Elueme said Nwaoboshi surrendered when the appeal court convicted him.

“Nothing could be farther from the truth arguing that the high ranking Senator who is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC surrendered himself even right from the time of conviction by the appeal court, even as he was not in court when convicted, ‘which in itself is legally perverse’,” he said.

“For whatever reason, the image maker of the Senator noted that the anti-graft agency chose to play to the gallery by misrepresenting facts to drive home its vendetta against a ‘law-abiding gentleman and lawmaker for that matter’ with intent to disparage him by dispensing falsehood to create a wrong impression in unsuspecting members of the public.

“Could he have gone into the correctional facility without a duly procured detention warrant or defiantly imprison himself?

“It was at the prompting of the distinguished Senator through his lawyers that the Remand warrant was procured on the 7th of February in Lagos.

“Attempts made by the senator, even through his lawyers to procure this same warrant, was not possible since they were told it was not in their place to process the document.

“We challenge the EFCC to exhibit the date on the remand order and tell the world why it took them seven months after the judgement of the court of appeal to obtain a remand warrant.”