The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Thursday, indicated its intention to respond in a suit filed by Festus Keyamo against Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Feb. 25 poll.

This was also as Oluwakemi Odogun, lawyer to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), told Justice James Omotosho of a Federal High Court, Abuja of the commission’s plan to file its response in the case.

 Keyamo, a spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), had instituted the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/84/2023 against Abubakar over allegations bordering on money laundering.

Also joined as defendants in the suit include the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), ICPC and the EFCC as 2nd to 4th defendants respectively.

Keyamo had earlier asked law enforcement agencies to arrest Abubakar based on an audio recording released by Michael Achimugu, his former aide.

In the audio, the former vice-president was alleged to have explained how shell organisations were set up to divert public funds.

 Justice Omotosho had, on March 7, threatened to strike out the suit over Keyamo’s inability to diligently prosecute the case.

Upon resumed hearing, Keyamo’s counsel, Okechukwu Uju-azorji, informed that the matter was slated for hearing.

Uju-azorji said that the former vice president, the 1st defendant, served on him a preliminary objection and that they had responded.

The lawyer said Abubakar, however, was not represented in court today to take his application.

He prayed the court for an adjournment to enable the 1st defendant take his objection.

Counsel to the EFCC, Senami Adeosun,, who also prayed the court for a short time to enable them file their process in the suit, said they were still within time to respond.

Odogun, who represented ICPC, spoke in the same vein.

“We were served on March 15 with the originating processes. We sought an adjournment since we are within time to file,” she said.

The judge adjourned the matter until April 18 for hearing of the pending preliminary objection.

Omotosho, who ordered that hearing notices be issued to Abubakar and CCB, that were not represented in court, directed that parties interested in filing any application should do so before the next adjourned date.

In a preliminary objection filed by Abubakar’s lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, the ex-vice president sought an order striking out or dismissing the suit for being incompetent and want of locus standi.

The lawyer, who argued that the suit be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, said the case failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action against his client.

But Keyamo, in a counter affidavit deposed to by Henry Offiah, a litigation clerk in his chamber, averred that the CCB, ICPC and EFCC failed to respond to the allegations he raised against Abubakar and indeed failed to take any steps to invite or arrest him for the purpose of investigating the allegations against him.

He said on Jan. 16, he wrote a petition to the three agencies requesting them to invite the former vice president for the purpose of conducting investigations into the said allegations.

 He said that they refused to commence any form of investigation with respect to the allegations leveled against him

Keyamo said he was aggrieved and instituted the present action on Jan. 20.

“The allegations made against the 1st defendant (Abubakar) are the subject matter of the investigation sought by the plaintiff and the plaintiff seeks reliefs against the 1st defendant,” the document read.

He said it was in the interest of justice for the court to dismiss Abubakar’s preliminary objection.

Mr. Festus Keyamo has petitioned the State Security Services (SSS), demanding the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed for making incendiary comments on television.

Keyamo Minister of State for Labour and Employment and also a spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) made copies of the petition available to newsmen on Thursday in Abuja.

He described comments made on television by Obi and Baba-Ahmed, presidential and vice-presidential candidates, respectively of the Labour Party (LP) at the Feb. 25 election as incendiary and capable of causing rebellion.

In the petition dated March 23, Keyamo noted that: “in a post-election period such as this, there is the need to soothe frayed nerves.’’

He noted that whilst exercising their rights to pursue constitutional means of addressing their grievances, the duo had been going from one television station to the other to make inciting statements.

He stated that the latest of such were comments made by Baba-Ahmed on behalf of himself and Obi on a television station on Wednesday.

He added that the LP’s vice-presidential candidate threatened on television that if the president-elect was sworn in on May 29, it would signal the end of democracy in Nigeria.

“Posing as an accuser, a judge and a jury all by himself, he unilaterally declared the return of the president-elect by INEC as unconstitutional.

“I also have it on good authority that Obi and Baba-Ahmed have camped some youths in a hotel in Abuja for posting inciting messages on social media platforms on daily basis.

“The posts are such that could cause panic and fear within the federation and incite people to riot and cause social unrest,’’ Keyamo stated in his petition.

He noted that while Obi and Baba-Ahmed had submitted election petitions to the courts for adjudication, their conduct and utterances amounted to a subversion of the processes they had instituted in court.

He added that their action was also a subversion of the Constitution and the laid-down processes for addressing disputes and grievances.

“These conducts and utterances are a build-up to something more sinister and it is important you rein them in now.

“These comments and claims are made not just within the boundaries of exercising their rights to freedom of speech but have crossed the line to call for the outright truncation of democracy.

“They have been insisting on the adoption of other processes outside the contemplation of our Constitution.

“In some cases, their privies have even called for the establishment of an Interim Government.

“I submit this petition in my personal capacity as a patriotic Nigerian to invite, arrest, interrogate and if necessary charge both individuals to court for their conducts which amount to incitement and treasonable felony,’’ Keyamo stated.

The Apex Igbo Socio-cultural organisation, Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide has urged Federal Government to intervene in what it described as “ethnic profiling of the Igbo in Lagos State” since the 2023 election began.

The group also wanted the Federal Government to look into the attendant hardship that Igbo people had been subjected to with a view to averting the impending tragedy.

This is contained in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia in Enugu on Monday, titled “What have Igbos done”.

According to him, there is need to end atrocities against the Igbos in Lagos State before it degenerates into other untold consequences.

“We, therefore, call on the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director of DSS, the Governor of Lagos State, as well as Bola Tinubu and others to wade into this ethnic profiling of the Igbo in Lagos.

“Ohanaeze wants to let the world know that Ndigbo has paid the ultimate prize for the unity of Nigeria,” he said.

Ogbonnia added that in spite of the harrowing experiences the Southeast endured during the civil war, the Igbos had embraced Nigeria with great enthusiasm, open-mindedness, hospitality, entrepreneurship, creativity and patriotism.

“The question on every lip is what have the Igbo done?” he asked.

Ohanaeze wondered why in every election, Igbos in Lagos would be a target of attack by both the traditional institutions and government agencies while the “federal government would complicity watch and sanctimoniously preach that the unity of Nigeria is indivisible and indissoluble.

“It is once more pointed out that Lagos was the capital of Nigeria at the Nigerian Independence in 1960; just like Abuja is today the capital of Nigeria.

“It is of course highly inconceivable for a particular ethnic group to be excluded from the social, economic and political activities in the federal capital territory of any country or in any part of the country for that matter.

“Instead of commendations and plaudits for the invaluable contributions of the Igbo in Lagos State, some miscreants have taken barbarism to the extreme by killing and maiming the Igbo because they came out to vote in a democratic election,”.

According to him, Ohanaeze Ndigbo does not want to view the Yoruba ethnicity through the narrow lens orchestrated by the illegals, miscreants, hoodlums and the jaundiced half-Yoruba who had met culture and civilization halfway.

“This is because, Ohanaeze cannot forget the likes of Dr. Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the Afenifere and indeed all those eminent Yoruba that stood on the side of justice, equity and history by supporting Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party for the presidency of Nigeria in 2023.

“Neither are we unaware of the numerous Igbo sons and daughters whose spouses are from the Yoruba ethnic group,” he noted.

The group pointed out that all the highly placed persons, such as Bayo Onanugas who had championed threats, maiming and killings of the Igbo in Lagos had never been brought to book as a deterrent to other unrepentant ethnic chauvinists.

He described Ndigbo as “essentially republican and cosmopolitan in nature” with a very open society that admitted competence far and above ethnic sentiments.

“In the First Republic, a Fulani man was elected the Mayor of Enugu.

“In last Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections, a Yoruba man, Chinasa Abiola was elected as a member of Abia State House of Assembly to represent Umuahia South State Constituency,” Ogbonnia added.