The Federal Government has been told to hand over the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Babachir Lawal, and Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ambassador Ayo Oke, to the police for criminal interrogation.

The International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) made the request while reacting to Wednesday suspension of the two men by President Muhammadu Buhari, who set up a three-man panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to investigate the fraud allegations against them.

Intersociety in a statement signed by the Board Chairman, Emeka Umeagbalasi, said there was nothing to celebrate about what Buhari has done because “their suspension is a necessary routine step that should be taken, though that of the SGF is long over-due or grossly belated.”

Faulting the constitution of the Osinbajo panel to probe the suspended duo, Intersociety said that it picks “deep hole . . . on the issue of subjecting them to mere civil fact finding to be done by the VP and barely knowledgeable AGF (Attorney-General of the Federation).”

According to the frontline rights group, “The matter at hand is purely criminal, requiring the requisite criminal interrogation for the purpose of finding out criminal motives behind the possible guilty act, parties involved in such suspected criminal act and guilty mind as well as possibly linking them up with the other five elements of crime.

These with all due respect are not issues to be handled by the VP and the barely knowledgeable AGF.

“For God’s sake, VP and AGF are mere senior lawyers and know little or nothing about conventional criminal investigation. We have DIG (Deputy Inspector General of Police) Criminal Investigations in Nigeria and in there lies Fraud Unit and allied departments.

Yet day-in day-out these well established government criminal investigative agencies are being undermined and unused.”

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