The Federal Government may have ordered the arrest of embattled Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Abdullahi Dikko, a source says.
According to the source, security agents at the nation’s airports and borders have been ordered to arrest Dikko as soon as he is in sight.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have reportedly trailed Dikko to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and will arrest him as soon as he lands Nigerian soil.
EFCC operatives had on Friday. January, 8, 2016 stormed Dikko’s residence at Jabi in Abuja and conducted a thorough search after meeting his absence. Sources within the anti-graft agency said the search took several hours and only ended at about dusk.
The EFCC was reported to be looking for huge amounts of money, in dollars, believed to be stashed in a residential building owned by the former customs chief. It was not clear whether the EFCC had found anything incriminating in Dikko’s residence.
A high-powered delegation of top operatives of the commission was billed to travel outside the country for a mission connected with the ongoing investigation, a source has revealed.
The source said, “The commission has information that the man is in Dubai. I can’t say precisely why he is in the UAE; you know that most of our leaders have one problem or the other, medically, which makes them travel out. But we have informed airport authorities in Lagos and Abuja to pick him up as soon as he arrives.”
Mohammed Usman, a relative of the former customs boss had on Friday alleged that the EFCC did not secure a search warrant before raiding the house.
Usman, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria, said “The information I gathered showed that the operatives, numbering about seven, were in the house to carry out a search for documents.
“A team of about seven operatives of the EFCC in company with some armed policemen arrived at the residence at about 7am and have been in the house for the past five hours.
“From the information available to me, no search warrant was presented before the commencement of the search. As I speak to you, they are currently in my uncle’s bedroom carrying out the search in his absence.”
Usman also expressed misgivings that the operation was carried out in the absence of the former comptroller-general.
“The only people in the house at the commencement of this search and even till now are his children who are below the age of 18,” he said.
