Orue Mary Keke (Abuja)
Mr. Babalele Abdullahi, son-in-law to the just defeated Presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who was arrested on Saturday over money laundering to the tune of €150 million has been released by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Also released on Tuesday is the deputy director-general of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Tanimu Turaki.
It would be recalled that the Commission had arrested Babalele, over an alleged €150 million money laundering. Atiku’s son-in-law was arrested on the charges that he could use hard currency to unduly influence the results of many polls taking place in the country during the just concluded Presidential/National Assembly elections.
Two days after raging furor over his arrest, EFCC eventually owned up to picking him up due to the alleged money laundering but the anti-graft agency did not specify how the huge sum was laundered or where it originated and where it terminated.
Kaftan Post authoritatively learnt that Abdullahi was released after the anti-graft agency invited Tanimu Turaki, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) leading the defense team of Atiku to sign a bail document for him. Tanimu Turaki was detain
Turaki, a former presidential aspirant of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was eventually released on Tuesday.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his Campaign’s deputy director general, Tanimu Turaki (SAN)
Prior to Turaki’s release, PDP spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, accused Nigeria president Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) of using federal powers to intimidate officials of the opposition party.
Ologbodiyan alleged that the PDP’s decision to challenge Buhari’s second term victory in court prompted the Turaki’s arrest.
According to him, “Since the people’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the PDP expressed our unwavering determination to reclaim our victory at the tribunal, being armed with overwhelming evidence, our leaders have been subjected to escalated harassments, constant threats blackmail, cajoling and contrivances by the APC to drop our legal option.
“It is instructive to state that Tanimu Turaki was arrested and detained upon invitation by the EFCC to endorse a bail document for the Finance Director of Atiku Abubakar’s company, Babalele Abdullahi, who was arrested earlier by the commission over flimsy allegations,” Ologbondiyan said in a statement.
