A frontline civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has condemned the undue manifestation of arbitrariness by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the matter involving the former Senator representing Kaduna Central, Senator Shehu Sani, and the Kaduna businessman, Alhaji Sani Dauda.

In a media statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA accused the EFCC of discrimination in the treatment of Senator Sani apparently because of his status as a well-known critic of President Muhammadu Buhari which may have informed his continued arbitrary detention.

“Why is the EFCC refusing to grant bail to this well-known civil rights activist and politician, Senator Sani? Why is his own matter different when there are a plethora of instances of politicians of all political persuasions who have been invited by the anti-graft body, interrogated and released on bail.

“Even the disgraced erstwhile Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Babachir Lawal, allegedly implicated in the multi-million contract scam related to the fund of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) of the North East of Nigeria, never spent up to six hours with the EFCC. But Senator Sani who has maintained his innocence of the accusations leveled against him by one person, is still being kept in detention without the anti-graft body either filing charges or releasing him on bail,” the rights group queried.

Besides, HURIWA believes that the arrest and detention of the Senator known for his persistent but constructive criticism of the failings of the current All Progressives Congress – led Federal Government is progressively revealing to be without reasonable cause and the trends are increasingly manifesting that he may, after all, be a political hostage or prisoner of conscience which contravenes all known municipal and international human rights laws.

“May we by this medium inform President Buhari that all human beings, including his critics such as Senator Sani, have the right to liberty and security. It is imperative that Senator Sani is released immediately from the arbitrary arrest and detention because irrespective of their treaty obligations, all states are bound by international law to respect and ensure everybody’s right to liberty and security of the person and this is obviously a universal legal responsibility which the Nigerian state must uphold at all times.

“The continuous detention of Senator Shehu Sani without any kind of reasonable cause is unconstitutional and illegal. The discriminatory denial of even administrative bail to him is a violation of section 42(1) of the Nigerian constitution.”

According to information released to the media by the EFCC, Senator Sani allegedly collected money from the chairman and CEO of ASD Motors, Alhaji Sani Dauda, under the pretence of passing it as bribe to EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu.

Sani Dauda was a former chairman of Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited(PAN). His ASD Motors is a major car dealer in Abuja.

However, HURIWA disclosed that from a written statement sent to it by the detained Senator through his office, he has categorically denied all the allegations and accused the EFCC of attempting to rope him into a phantom charge of criminality.

HURIWA affirmed that Senator Sani has denied all the allegations him “as baseless, factless, unfounded, hollow and unsubstantial” describing them as “a scripted stream of mischievous concoctions and utter fabrications using a puppet state agent; all aimed at splashing faeces and mud on me.”

Shehu Sani further said: “The extortion allegation is nothing but a wholesale falsehood, packaged in a phantom anti-graft facade to taint, stain and mute me. That shall never happen if I am alive.

“The bribe story is phantom, a fake, imaginative work of fiction, cruelly crafted to smear me, to frame me and to justify my persecution.

“It is a heap of blatant lies and outright falsehood concocted and fabricated, using a front and the EFCC to premiere a state drama

“Criminalizing me or “framing me” will not silence me, bend me or compromise me.”

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