JUST IN: EFCC grants Obiano "almost impossible to meet" bail

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced the granting of administrative bail to the immediate past governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, who was arrested on Thursday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, while trying to board a flight to Texas, United States.

EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, announced this to journalists on Monday morning, March 21, in Abuja, adding, however, that Obiano was yet to meet the bail conditions.

Bawa said that there was nothing political about the former governor's arrest.

His words: "There is nothing political about the investigation. You know what the EFCC stands for. We investigate crimes, we look at people that have committed crimes and we link it up together and then we go to court. That is all we have been doing and that is what we will continue to do.

"We have been accused of media trial. But we will continue to do our investigation professionally.

"He has been granted bail and we are waiting for him to perfect his bail conditions he has been cooperating with us and everything is going on well."

Supreme learnt that conditions for Obiano's bail include providing as sureties, two directors in the Federal Public Service with verified landed properties in Abuja are needed to provide surety for him.

This has been condemned by the Nigeria Renewal Movement, which described the bail conditions as being "almost impossible to meet".

The group in a press statement issued on Monday, signed by its President, Barrister Linus Ilechukwu and Secretary General, Comrade Yemisi Hameed-Aderibigbe, called on the anti-corruption agency to release Obiano and charge him to court if after investigation, he (Obiano) actually has a case to answer.

The statement reads: "While no one questions the relevance or value of anti-graft agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a fantastically corrupt country like Nigeria, the EFCC has sometimes gone about its business in strange ways. The consequence is the loss of cases, especially high-profile ones, which ultimately leads to considerable erosion of public confidence in the ability of the agency. The EFCC has routinely been accused of operating two systems of justice, one for favoured Nigerians and the other for the doomed.

"The manner it has gone about the case of Chief Willie Obiano, Anambra State governor till Thursday, March 17, 2022, calls for concern. For example, its officers or agents on Saturday, March 19, 2022, leaked to the mass media a picture of the erstwhile governor in shorts drinking tabled water in its holding facility in Abuja. It has not adduced any reason for the action which is clearly unprecedented in Nigeria's history. Most citizens agree that the purpose was to humiliate him. But the action has ended up winning Chief Obiano, one of the most famous governors in recent national history when he was in office, enormous public sympathy across the nation.

Source: News Express