Police quiz Jagaba over $620,000 bribe scandal

Police Special Task Force on Tuesday interrogated the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Drugs/Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Mr. Adams Jagaba.

The lawmaker was quizzed over the $620,000 bribery scandal involving the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Fuel Subsidy, Mr. Farouk Lawan.

The Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Frank Mba, confirmed this in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja,

He said Jagaba arrived at the Force Headquarters at 11am and left two hours later when he was granted bail on self-recognition.

Mba stated, “He made statement that will be very useful to the investigation (into the subsidy scandal).”

Lawan had claimed that he reported the bribery to Jagaba through a letter he wrote in April.

He stated that he handed over the $620,000 to Jagaba.

Lawan said he expected the narcotic committee chairman to forward the bribe money to the House leadership.

Our correspondents learnt that Jagaba reiterated that Lawan did not give him the money or a letter.

It was learnt that the police and the State Security Service had been working to break the deadlock in the investigation into the bribery scandal.

It was learnt that the two security agencies, had since last week, been meeting on how to conclude the probe into the scandal.

Before last week, the investigation had got to a dead-end following the failure of the SSS to release some exhibits to the police.

The STF had written to the Director-General of the SSS requesting the call logs of persons involved in the scandal and the case file containing the initial statement of the Chairman of the Zenon Oil and Gas, Mr. Femi Otedola.

Mba last week said the police had no enough evidence to prosecute Lawan.

He said the police were gathering more evidence on the matter.