Farouk Lawan Detained by the Police Plus How He he asked House of Reps to Remove Femi Otedola’s Companies from Probe Report

EMBATTLED Chairman of the fuel subsidy probe panel in the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan, on Thursday surrendered himself to police for interrogation over the $620,000 bribe he had confessed to receiving from an oil marketer, Femi Otedola.

The lawmaker was subsequently interrogated and detained along with the Clerk of his committee, Boniface Emenalo.

Lawan arrived at the office of the police Special Task Force at the Louis Edet House Force headquarters about 4pm, in company with  Emenalo and five lawyers.

The lawmaker was detained briefly before he was taken to the interrogation room where detectives, led by the Commissioner of Police in charge of the STF, Ali Ahmadu, quizzed him four several hours.

As of the time of filing this report, the diminutive legislator was still undergoing questioning.

The police on Wednesday had hinted that they would declare the lawmaker wanted if he refused to give himself up for interrogation on the bribery scandal

Otedoda had claimed that Lawan demanded and received the money, being part of a $3m bribe deal, in order to remove his Zenon Oil from the list of those indicted in a N1.7trn subsidy rot.

The businessman said Lawan collected $500,000 in two tranches of $250,000 while he sent Emenalo to collect $120,000 at a later date.

However, on Monday Lawan, who had denied receiving the bribe, confessed to have received the bribe but that he only did so to expose Otedola.

Police sources told our correspondent that immediately the lawmaker showed up at the STF office on the first floor of the police headquarters, Ahmadu promptly went to the office of the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, on the 7th floor to brief him and take directives.

Two other senior officers, namely  the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Intelligence, Solomon Arase; and the DIG, Intelligence, Peter Gana, also joined the STF boss in an emergency meeting with the Acting IG where the strategies on the interrogation were said to have been discussed.

Abubakar, who initiated the investigation into the bribery scandal, left his office around 6pm and later came back apparently to get an immediate report on the interrogation of Lawan and Emenalo.

Otedola had appeared before the STF on Tuesday, where he was said to have written a detailed statement on his encounter with the lawmaker and how he gave the bribe to him.

Meanwhile, barring last minute changes, the House will at its emergency meeting on Friday (today) mandate its Committee on Ethics and Privileges to probe the $3m bribery allegation against Lawan. The lawmakers may also ask Lawan to step down from his committee chairmanship position in the House.

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