Officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have laid siege to the Abuja residence of former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello.
According to eyewitnesses, EFCC officials have barricaded the ex-governor’s residence since 9 a.m. on Wednesday.
Bello was the governor of Kogi State from January 27, 2016 to January 27, 2024, when he handed it over to his fellow partyman in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Usman Ododo.
The purpose of the operation by the anti-graft operatives was unknown at press time, as efforts to speak with them proved abortive.
Some supporters of the former governor were seen in front of the house.
In mid-March, the EFCC indicted Yahaya Bello for an alleged diversion of about N100 billion, an offence said to have been committed months before he assumed office as governor in September 2015.
The EFCC had joined Yahaya Bello in the amended suit alongside the Chief of Staff to Kogi State Governor, Alli Bello, and one Daudu Suleiman, who was re-arraigned by the anti-graft agency before Justice James Omotoso of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The ex-governor was not a defendant in the original suit and was not in court on the said day.
Justice Omotoso had granted an accelerated hearing in the matter and had also ordered that all forms of objections must be kept in abeyance until the address stage and the charge were read to them.
In the first count, the former governor and the two suspects were accused of conspiring with each other in September 2015 and converting N80, 246, 470, and 089 to their personal use.
They were also alleged to have run foul of Section 18(a) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 because they ought to have reasonably known that the money was a product of fraud and a criminal breach of public trust.
In other charges, the suspects were alleged to have concealed several millions of naira with one Rabiu Musa Tafada, a Bureau de Change (BDC) operator trading under Global Venture in Abuja.
The Kogi State Government had swiftly faulted the anti-graft agency and described it as a “witch hunt,” the charges against the immediate past governor.
