Buhari petitioned over EFCC harassment
President Muhammadu Buhari has been petitioned over the arrest and detention of a former member of the House of Representatives and Chairman/Founder of First Guarantee Pensions Limited (FGPL), Hon. Nze Chidi Duru, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
According to the petition signed by a journalist who doubles as Duru’s Media Consultant, Mr. Christian Ogodo, the travails of Duru was at the instance of one Kashim Ibrahim Imam “who is a minority shareholder in the First Guarantee Pensions Limited.”
The petition stated that EFCC and Imam were acting in clear disregard of extant court orders/judgements, adding that Imam was scheming to lay unlawful claim to assets and management of the company.
The petition stated: “By this letter we are also seeking your kind intervention in prevailing on the EFCC and Kashim Imam, as well as their agents and proxies, to refrain from further persecuting our client, and to respect subsisting court orders and judgements in respect of this matter under reference.
The petitioner stated that presidency’s intervention will result in: “The EFCC complying with their earlier written directives of the Attorney General of the Federation specifically directing it to bring the case file for review and further directives.
“It will also make the EFCC acting within the law and, in particular, specifically withdrawing the 2015 charge it instituted in Lagos High Court.
The petition further stated that “a forensic audit of FGPL which currently manages over N113 billion worth of assets of contributors, be conducted as the company has not held Annual General Meeting in the past six 6 years and no account has been rendered to the stakeholders.”
The petitioner alleged that Kashim Imam and nine minority shareholders, purporting to represent all the shareholders of FGPL, had in 2011, written a petition dated August 16, 2011 to the EFÇC.
According to Ogodo, the 2011 petition to the anti -graft agency had urged the commission “to investigate the contents of two documents namely the Draft First Guarantee Pensions Ltd Target Examination and the Target Examination Report of First Guarantee Pensions Ltd.”
Duru was however, granted bail on self-recognition on Tuesday by Justice Peter Afen of an FCT High Court sitting in Abuja. All attempts by EFCC to railroad Duru to prison custody failed also failed.
There’s been a running battle between the Director General of National Pension Commission (PENCOM) Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu and the First Guaranty Pension Trust Ltd Founder Hon. Chidi Duru, alongside Alhaji Ibrahim Kashim, a former special adviser on national assembly matters to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
