TheCable

Jude Ndukwe, media aide to Femi Fani-Kayode, director, media and publicity of the Goodluck Jonathan presidential election campaign, says the federal government is dealing with its perceived enemies instead of tackling the recession.

His aide said this while reacting to the arrest of the Fani-Kayode, who was picked by operatives of the EFCC operatives just as he stepped out of the federal high court in Lagos.

The former aviation minister is standing trial for his alleged involvement in a N4.9bn fraud case.

But in a statement on Friday, Ndukwe alleged that the EFCC was being used to silence the opposition under the guise of fighting corruption.

“Is that not why despite the urgent need to tackle the economic recession they have plunged the country into, they have concentrated all their efforts on dealing with all members of the opposition and perceived enemies even including honourable justices of the supreme court,” the statement by Ndukwe read.

“The re-arrest of Fani-Kayode is needless as much as it is reckless. The EFCC once again lived up to its billing of being used by the current administration for the sinister purposes of silencing the opposition under the guise of fighting corruption.

“As expected and as earlier stated in his press statement, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode had already raised the alarm that he was going to be rearrested by the EFCC as the organisation whose operations have become easily predictable, have graduated from being an investigative body meant to serve the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians to a vindictive institution willing to do the bidding of some vengeful cabal whose existence even the wife of the president confirmed recently.

“Let it be on record that Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was held for 67 days in EFCC custody who used questionable orders from magistrates to perpetuate their illegality. While in their custody he suffered all forms of abuses, trauma and even physical attacks from some of the agents of the Commission. Their thinking was that all these torture and torments would be enough to silence him.

“But rather than being silenced, Fani-Kayode, to the consternation of his traducers, has remained faithful to his position right from the pre-election periods that this is a regime of evil men whose only purpose for wanting power was to waste their perceived enemies, their family members and all those associated with them.”

He said earlier in the month, the EFCC filed a fresh suit against Fani-Kayode at the federal high court in Abuja, but failed to show up the day the matter was heard.

“The case was consequently adjourned to November 10, 2016. We are therefore aghast but not surprised that this latest action of the EFCC is in sync with the script writers of this whole episode to silence Fani-Kayode by hook or by crook. Words have filtered to us from credible sources within the presidency and the security agencies that the ultimate aim of those who are behind the former minister’s travails is to apply ‘extreme measures’ on him,” he said.

“We have also been told that in security circles, that means to have him killed through the use of some poisonous substances that would break his health down irreversibly and eventually kill him even months after he might have been released so that the suspicion would not be at the doorsteps of state agents.

“If not, why allow Nenadi Usman (former minister of State of Finance) and Director of Finance in the PDP Campaign Organisation, Danjuma and others charged alongside Fani-Kayode to go and only him was re-arrested in the court premises?

“Our fears now are that nothing is beyond this government of sadists and fascists. We call on the good people of Nigeria, democrats and lovers of this great nation to rise and demand that no Nigerian should be persecuted or assassinated based on his beliefs and or opinions on critical national matters.

“We are watching very closely, and should anything untoward happen to FFK, Nigerians of course know who to hold responsible even as we demand for his immediate and unconditional release now.”