ABUJA — Indications have emerged in Abuja that as the embattled former Chairman of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on fuel subsidy regime, Farouk Lawan, continues to delay on his promise to return the $620,000 bribe money allegedly collected from the oil magnate, Femi Otedola, he is busy assembling a crack team of lawyers to take on investigators of the Special Task Force and fight his way out.
Lawan who was at the Force Headquarters, yesterday, was said to have baffled investigators with the usual promise that he would bring the money even when such talk has so far yielded nothing.
Mr Farouk Lawan
Sources told us that the Police, having grown wary of Lawan’s antics, are suspecting that he is trying to play a fast one on the investigators as it has emerged he was trying to buy time to enable him challenge his arrest, detention and continuous appearance before the Police every two days.
Reporting to the police every 48 hours is one of the conditions given to him for his bail, which he has been honouring accordingly.Sources, however, revealed that while Lawan is pleading for time, the police may be left with no other option than to charge him to court since it is getting clearer by the day that the money can no longer be retrieved from him.
The source added that Lawan’s decision to collect the $120,000 given to the secretary of the committee, Boniface Emenalo, made the Police smell a rat that he didn’t want any trace of the money, to prevent its being used as evidence against him.
Meanwhile, Farouk Lawan has continued to insist that he gave proceeds of the bribery allegation to the House Committee Chairman on Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Mr. Adams Jagaba, who has since denied the claims.
Jagaba has also written to the Police investigating team to indicate that he knows nothing about the money and detectives have said it may be adopted as his own statement.
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