Saraki's Wife Storms EFCC Offices With Crowd

Toyin Saraki, the wife of Nigeria’s embattled Senate
President, Bukola Saraki, this morning showed up at the
headquarters of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) accompanied by a horde of
politicians and supporters.
Our correspondent said EFCC officials
appeared overwhelmed by the huge entourage that
accompanied Mrs. Saraki to their office.
Mrs. Saraki arrived some two hours late for her
appointment at the commission, her ostentatious arrival
causing a commotion on the premises of the anti-
corruption agency.
An EFCC source told SaharaReporters that the unruly
crowd brought along by the Senate President’s wife forced
their way into the offices of the EFCC’s Director of
Operations, accusing the anti-corruption agency of bias.
Apart from the members of Mrs. Saraki’s entourage
who forced their way into the EFCC’s building, another
group of her sympathizers stood outside the gates, creating
a scene that seemed calculated to rattle EFCC agents.
A senior agent at the EFCC told our correspondent that the
commission was not worried by Mrs. Saraki’s melodramatic
ploy, adding that investigators at the agency had generated
solid evidence of graft against her.
“We are going to focus on doing our work, instead of
minding that she came here with a large crowd to cause
tension,” the agent said.
Since receiving a summons from the EFCC last week to
appear for questioning, Mrs. Saraki and her husband,
Senator Saraki, have reportedly been behind a series of
propaganda campaigns to portray the EFCC as an
organization engaged in a witch hunt against them. A
source within the agency told SaharaReporters that the
commission was not deterred by the campaigns. “They
want to claim that our invitation was engineered by Senator
Bukola Saraki’s political opponents. We cannot engage in
press propaganda. But once we do a thorough job, the
public will see the facts of the case. And that is the best
way to rubbish the propaganda,” he said.
SaharaReporters learned that Mr. Saraki is directly and
indirectly implicated in a series of money
laundering schemes involving his wife.
An EFCC sources said their team of investigators were
ready to begin questioning Mrs. Saraki
on her alleged involvement in a multibillion
naira misappropriation of bank loans and laundering
of funds stolen from Kwara State during the two terms her
husband was governor there.
One EFCC source revealed that the agency began to
investigate Mrs. Saraki based on a petition submitted to the
commission by the Kwara State chapter of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP). However, it became public
knowledge that the chapter had complained about the
senator’s wife, the national leadership of the PDP has
been pressuring their Kwara State chapter to withdraw their
petition. The PDP even claimed that the signatures on the
petition were forged.
An EFCC source told SaharaReporters that nothing would
stop their investigation at this point, since investigators at
the commission had uncovered significant
“information about Mrs. Saraki’s activities during her
husband’s tenure as governor.”