While the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is quick to rush to the media to celebrate the discovery of money at the Kaduna International Airport, Osborne Towers, Lagos, locked up shops, and other locations, they have continued to downgrade or completely failed to mention their fruitless efforts made at implicating Alex Badeh, the immediate past chief of defence staff, over things he knows nothing about.
The EFCC and other security agencies have failed to inform Nigerians of their various fruitless searches conducted in properties belonging to Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh. It is of note that these searches are characterised by all forms of intimidation directed at the man, his family and domestic staff. Properties belonging to Air Chief Marshal Badeh have also been destroyed in the process.
Homes and offices of family friends have been raided without search warrants. Some of his friends have faced all forms of harassment
Various searches have been conducted in his house in Yola,and his farm Kugwuru village, Karu Nasarawa state.
In a letter addressed to the minister of justice and attorney general of the federation, Akin Olujimi SAN called the AGF’s attention to the “continuous harassment, threat to life and vandalization of property by security operatives.
The letter shows that security operatives invaded the ex CDS’s farm in Nasarawa state on April 6th and 9th 2017 at 9pm and 1am respectively.
The April 6th search was conducted by men of DSS without search warrants. They broke into Badeh’s room in the farm, broke into the ceiling and even into the underground septic tanks in the farm. One of the operatives was said to have been stuck inside the septic tank and was subsequently rescued by Badeh’s staff who had to wash him up having fallen into faeces.
According to the letter, the search of 9th April was carried out this time by another set of plain clothes operatives who “cut open the wired fence, entered through it with their Hilux van and forced the farm manager to open the gate for their bus to enter the farm. They were said to have lined up everybody in the farm and threatened to shoot them if they do not cooperate by telling them where the ex CDS hid the money. They said they came with information that money was hidden near the underground sewage tank. They later identified themselves to be EFCC operatives but failed to provide any search warrants.
Akin Olujimi said “it is on the back of these events that our client has considered it pertinent that we bring the matter to your notice the actions of the operatives which we do not believe were authorized by you. Their actions are patently illegal and they constitute a breach of our client’s constitutionally guaranteed human rights.
“May whatever arm of the security operatives involved in these nocturnal invasions, be directed to put a stop to the harassments of our client. They had done it on some occasions in the past. This renewal of the harassments has alerted our client to the need to cry out for protection. Let nobody plant anything illegal on our client’s farm or his house and then turn around to claim that they found any such thing in his farm or house,” Olujimmi said.
The letter to the AGF. Click on any image to enlarge.
Reacting to the news, a group called The New Nigeria Patriots described it as a sad development, the fact that someone who dedicated many years to the service of his fatherland should be treated like this.
According to the national coordinator of the group, Samuel Ndubuisi, Alex Badeh remains the most vilified ex public officer in Nigeria at the moment. The man has been unfairly treated by the federal government. His arrest and detention was widely celebrated in the media.
The whole country was made to believe he was arrested in connection with the federal government investigation of diversion of funds meant for arms procurement to aid the war against Boko Haram. When he was arraigned, no mention of his involvement in the purported arms fund diversion, popularly called #Dasukigate, was made.
The group said it has consistently monitored the court proceedings and that the prosecution has not presented a single evidence linking Badeh to any crime. According to the group, the constant harassment of Badeh is borne out of desperation to justify the huge money being spent on lawyers in the name of fighting corruption.
Ndubuisi concluded by saying “If you raid the properties of an innocent man a million times, that will not make him guilty of a crime he did not commit. If you open the septic tank of an innocent man, you can only find faeces.
Culled from 247 UReports
