Former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello visited the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recently, but the commission dismissed it as a publicity ploy, saying Bello wasn’t ready to turn himself in.

During an interview on Arise TV’s The Morning Show on Thursday, 26 September 2024, Wilson Uwujaren, the EFCC Director of Public Affairs, made this claim.

Uwujaren mentioned that Bello was given another opportunity to appear before Justice Emeka Nwite on Wednesday at the Federal High Court in Abuja, where his ongoing money laundering case was postponed to October 30, 2024, for a ruling.

“That should be sufficient to persuade Nigerians that his appearance before the EFCC on September 18 was merely a publicity ploy rather than a genuine attempt to uphold the law. If he had no problem presenting himself to the commission, he would have followed EFCC officials when they went to the Kogi Governor’s lodge to ask him to come back.”

“Had he done that, he would have followed the court of appeals’ ruling requiring him to make an official appearance. From my perspective, that revealed his lack of sincerity when he showed up at the EFCC parking lot on September 18,” he remarked.

He said that the former governor had not yet reached the office when word spread about Bello’s visit to the commission.

“Before he arrived at the EFCC parking lot, he had sent out media information on all platforms that he had submitted himself to the EFCC and that they had even said he had been detained, which was untrue, That alone demonstrated to us that he had a strategy. And only he can describe that strategy,” he remarked.

Last Wednesday, Bello’s media office issued a statement stating that, months after the EFCC proclaimed him wanted, he had accepted an invitation from the organization. Soon after, images of Bello and Usman Ododo, the current governor of Kogi State, at the EFCC parking lot became viral on social media.

The EFCC, however, refuted that Bello was in its custody in a statement issued by Dele Oyewale, a spokesperson, and stated that Bello is still wanted and has an active arrest warrant. Later that evening, to detain former governor Yahaya Bello, EFCC agents stormed the Kogi State Government Lodge in Abuja.

According to Uwajaren “He should have gone straight to the security post and informed the personnel on duty that he had come to present himself if he had wished to follow the law. They would have known what they should have done.”

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