Ekweremadu: Asset forfeiture, plot to sabotage bail – HURIWA alleges

By Adeleye Kunle

Civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has faulted the move by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which culminated in an interim assets forfeiture order by a Federal High Court in Abuja against a former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu.

Reacting to the development in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA, said the asset forfeiture lawsuit at a time Ekweremadu was in custody, facing trial in the United Kingdom, and unable to defend himself or properly brief his lawyers was malicious, immoral, in bad faith, and tantamount to a country throwing her citizen under the bus.

It also decried what it viewed as a concerted effort between the anti-graft agency and the London Metropolitan Police to botch Ekweremadu bail and keep him perpetually in detention.

HURIWA stated: “We are in shock over the news of the interim assets forfeiture order against Senator Ike Ekweremadu following an application by the EFCC.

“We are particularly shocked because it is coming at a time when the Senator is fighting for his freedom, reputation, and the life of his daughter in a foreign land.

“We equally recall that the petition against Senator Ekweremadu, which he claimed was politically motivated, was lodged against him at the EFCC in 2016, but the Senator’s first brush with the anti-graft agency only came in the early hours of July 24, 2018, when operatives of the agency and a retinue of security agents laid siege to his Apo Legislative Quarters official residence without any previous invitation