Senator Shehu Sani who represented Kaduna central senatorial district in the 8th Assembly has described his arrest and detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as unfair, unjust and politically motivated.
Sani who was picked up by the anti-graft body last week is accused of receiving bribe from the owner of ASD Motors, Sani Dauda, with a promise of passing it on to the acting chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu.
He is also accused of claiming that he could assist Dauda in influencing the outcome of some cases using his connection with the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Muhammad Tanko, and some other judges.
Both Magu and Tanko have distanced themselves from Sani.
Reacting to his travails in a statement in Abuja on Thursday, the embattled Senator held that the allegations against him were “baseless, factless, unfounded, and hollow.”
He insisted that the extortion allegation was a wholesale falsehood, packaged to taint, stain and mute him, vowing that his traducers would not succeed as long as he was alive.
The statement read: “The allegations of “extortion” against me is baseless, factless, unfounded, and hollow.
“It is a scripted stream of mischievous concoctions and utter fabrications using a puppet state agent; all aimed at splashing faeces and mud on me.
“The extortion allegation is nothing but a wholesale falsehood, packaged in a phantom anti-graft façade to taint, stain and mute me. That shall never happen if I am alive.
“I have made my statement and provided all my facts against their package of lies and I demand the EFCC to make public all the sheets of our statements and supporting documents for the world to see.
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“My detention is unfair, unjust, prearranged and politically motivated.
“Alhaji Sani Dauda and his hidden sponsors have not been able to provide any proof of their allegations. I’m unjustly incarcerated on the ground of an arranged two-page petition backed with no evidential or documentary proof.
“Fascism thrives in frame-up of its critics.
“They claim extortion and here they are closing my bank accounts, searching my houses and offices and demanding that I declare my assets of which I have already done that at the CCB last year when I left the senate.
“Frame up cannot silence me!!!
“I have never ever met with the CJN or any judge or judges or ever called directly or indirectly to offer to give or to give directly or indirectly any form of gratification from Alhaji Sani Dauda.
“I have never ever discussed with ASD on any form of bribe or gratification to be given to any judge or any EFCC official.
“The bribe story is phantom, the bribe story is a fake, imaginative work of fiction, cruelly crafted to smear me, to frame me and to justify my persecution.
“The bribe story is a heap of blatant lies falsehood concocted and fabricated, using a front and the EFCC to premiere a state drama.
“ASD is a barely educated front for a state mission.
“Criminalizing me or “framing me” will not silence me, bend me or compromise me.”