The family of a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mrs Patricia Etteh, has condemned her arrest and media trial by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in connection with a N240m contract awarded by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 2011.
The family in a statement made available to Tribune Online on Wednesday demanded her release from EFCC custody, stating the detention of the former speaker is illegal.
The family head, Femi Alabi, who signed the statement noted that the family matriarch was arrested and detained when she honoured an invitation by the EFCC over to make clarification on contract issues involving Philjin Projects Ltd on Tuesday.
It further said the EFCC should rather investigate Philjin Projects properly to ascertain the idea of fraudulent activities.
The statement read: “Putting the record straight, Mrs Ibiene Wille-Harry, the Chief Executive Officer of Philjin Projects Ltd, a company under investigation is a longtime friend of Mrs Etteh as far as we know.
“Their bond of friendship is so deep to the extent that Mrs Etteh’s daughter lived in Mrs Wille-Harry’s house till she graduated from the University.
“This degree of closeness, therefore, encompassed constant financial assistance in form of soft loans from Mrs Etteh to Mrs Wille-Harry for the latter to execute several projects.
“It is crystal clear that the basis of every transaction between Mrs Etteh and Mrs Wille-Harry within the period mentioned by the EFCC was evidence of repayment of the said loans.
“Obviously, Mrs Etteh, by her inalienable right reserves the liberty to instruct her debtor to make payment in any manner she considered desirable in line with her financial circumstances at that point in time, hence, the directive to make payment into her personal account and that of her company.”
The family added that “logically, therefore, there wouldn’t have been a directive to make payment into her personal account in case of any predetermined notion of fraud.
“Secondly, Mrs Patricia Etteh, from all indications had nothing to do with any business transaction with Mrs Willy-Harry except generous assistance on the ground of friendship.
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“However, the speed in which the EFCC coined the said mutual transaction a ‘fraud’ is nothing but a fallacy of hasty assumption and encroachment of her fundamental rights.
“To this end, we want to emphatically state that we are really disturbed and worried by this development as a family because we are people of respected pedigree and we have an important family name to protect.
“We can say without any doubt that Mrs Patricia Etteh has nothing to do with any contract as the commission itself clearly established that she is neither a director in the company nor a contractor.
“Mrs Etteh, in line with our family’s guiding philosophy, is contented and would never involve in any shady deals. Even in office as an elected official, she never solicited any contract.
“The purity of her personality had been established in the past by appropriate authorities after she was wrongly accused as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and her innocence was later proclaimed without blemish.
“We, therefore, strongly implore the commission to further beam its searchlight on the investigation on Philjin Projects Ltd, to ascertain the veracity of Mrs Etteh’s part as explained therein, as we demand her immediate and unconditional release on the strength of her innocence and fundamental human rights.”
In the same vein, a group, Advocacy for Advancement of Peace & Harmony in Africa Initiative (ADAPHAI) stated that Etteh’s detention was a clear violation of her fundamental human rights, warning that the subsequent media trial without thorough investigation is unacceptable.
It further stated that the EFCC detained the former speaker based on assumption, adding that the agency itself established the fact that Etteh was a director in the company or a contractor.
National Coordinator of the advocacy group, Sulaimon Suberu, further demanded Etteh’s unconditional release following the anti-graft agency’s inability to establish a relationship between her and the contracting firm and the strength of her innocence.
“By the import of the EFCC’s statement, which indicated that the transaction was carried out in the last eleven years, there was no evidence that Mrs Etteh by the transaction was a direct beneficiary of the purported contract with the NDDC, in which the EFCC predicated its investigation and invited her.
“Finally, based on this stage of its investigation and assumption, the EFCC should have honoured her on the basis of personal recognition instead of detaining her as if there is a concrete evidence leaking her to the alleged fraud committed by Philjin Projects Ltd,” the group said in a statement.