A man, Olajide Lateef, has been held in custody by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in the past three weeks without a formal charge.
The man was arrested in Lagos and detained for three days at the Okotieboh detention facility of the anti-graft agency before he was eventually transferred to Kaduna, where he is now cooling off his feet at the anti-graft agency’s facility.
A source revealed that prior to his arrest, Lateef had entered into a business relationship with one Chris Benedict from whom he was said to have collected a sum of N57 million in 2013.
The nature of the business between the two of them remains sketchy. However, a source close to the detained suspect revealed that Lateef collected the sum of money and after some months came back to inform his partner that the “business was going down as it was not making any progress”.
The detainee consequently made a refund of N20 million to the complainant, promising to pay the balance at a later date. It was gathered that the suspect had defaulted several times by simply reneging on his promise to pay the balance.
Apparently angered by the fact that there was no way he could recover his balance, Benedict consequently petitioned the antigraft agency, complaining that his supposed partner had played a fast one on him.
It was on the strength of the petition that operatives of the commission swung into action to arrest the suspect three weeks ago, detaining him, in the first instance, for three days at the EFCC Lagos office without a formal charge before transferring him to Kaduna.
Lateef was said to have suggested to the operatives of the EFCC at Kaduna that the risk of the business that led to the loss of N30 million should be shared between the two of them.
The suggestion was said to have been opposed by the EFCC operatives, who labeled him a fraudster. Our source revealed further that since the suspect’s arrest, he had not been charged to court.
“The operatives gave a stringent condition for his bail. They asked him to pay up or get a level 17- officer as surety,” the source said. The spokesperson of the Commission, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, did not pick his calls. He also did not reply text messages sent to his phone on the matter.
