…Crisis deepens, as Bode George calls for Makarfi’s resignation***
There was confusion in Asokoro district of Abuja yesterday when armed guards of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Department of State Security (DSS) prevented officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from arresting their former bosses residing in the area.
It was gathered that attempts by EFCC officials and policemen to arrest former director-general of the DSS, Ita Ekpeyong, and former head of the NIA, Ayo Oke, were resisted by armed officials at their homes on Mamman Nasir Street in the Asokoro district of Abuja.
This resistance led to a stand-off between armed security officers from all the four agencies, causing traffic mayhem in the area.
Meanwhile, armed plain-clothed security personnel have also mounted strategic positions on the street. Reporters were prevented from getting to the end of the street around 3pm yesterday, while efforts to access the street from two adjoining streets were rebuffed by armed mobile policemen.
Residents of the area, who tried to find their way to their homes and those visiting the area expressed frustration at the closure of the street.
Wilson Uwujaren, spokesman of the EFCC, was not available for comments, as he neither picked his call nor replied text messages sent to him.
This is not the first time the DSS and EFCC would be involved in a public spat.
The Senate had based its non-confirmation of Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the EFCC, on a report of the DSS.
Ekpeyong Ita is being investigated for offences bordering on alleged theft and diversion of public funds in the arms deal saga involving a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), and other service chiefs who have since been arraigned.
Oke, who was recently sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly stashing away N13bn in a house in Ikoyi, had been refusing to honour invitations for over three weeks.
In the meantime, the crisis confronting the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP deepened yesterday after another of the eight national chairmanship contenders expressed lack of confidence in the actions of the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee, NCC, which it described as favouring a South-South candidate.
The allegation was made by Chief Bode George, the erstwhile deputy national chairman of the party. The call came a day after Prof. Tunde Adeniran, another South-west candidate accused Makarfi of partisanship towards Prince Uche Secondus from Rivers State. George, however, did not mention any name. Secondus and the media mogul, Chief Raymond Dokpesi are the only candidates in the contest for national chairman from the South-South.
George, speaking through the Director-General of the Bode George Campaign Organization, BGCO, Alhaji Ibrahim Aliu, called on Makarfi to resign accusing him of attempting to skew the December 9 congress of the party in favour of a South-South aspirant.
Reacting to the allegation, Makarfi told Vanguard yesterday evening: “He is entitled to his opinion.” Alhaji Aliu said Makarfi could no longer be allowed to pilot the affairs of the party because “he is already tarred and soiled in the muddy waters of partisan prejudice.”
The BGCO Director-General, who accused the PDP chairman of nursing a personal ambition of contesting for the Presidential office in 2019, said Makarfi could no longer play the role of a neutral arbiter.
In a statement, Aliu said: “It is increasingly disturbing and rather untidy the role Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Chairman of the PDP Caretaker Committee is presently playing in the processes towards the party national convention on December 9, this year.
“Apparently spurred by personal ambition of contesting for the Presidential office in 2019, Makarfi is brazenly allying with a particular aspirant in the South-South to deliberately distort the process, muddle equity and invariably destroy the democratic process for transient personal gains. Makarfi’s action, to put it mildly, is sickening, untoward, blatantly tendentious , totally stripped of the typical moral high ground that often defines a well meaning, God- fearing arbitrating leadership.
“Everywhere you look, Makarfi is planting the agents of his favorite South-South candidate to stage manage warped and skewed congresses in an undisguised mockery of all the normative patterns of our founding fathers whose enduring forte about equity, justice and fairness is now being flung into the gutter.
In a way, Makarfi is evidently resolved to repeat the farcical malady that characterized the debacle in Port Harcourt last year.” “We have equally resolved that we will not be led along this ruinous path again.
Never. For the sake of propriety, for the sake of all that is good and meaningful, for the sake of equitable balance and moral appropriateness, we strongly advise Senator Makarfi to resign his position forthwith because he has been severely compromised.
He can no longer play the role of a neutral arbiter who stands far above the fray. He is already tarred and soiled in the muddy waters of partisan prejudice. Makarfi should now do the most honourable thing by walking away and face his ambition squarely.”
Citizen with additional report from Vanguard
