BEVERLY HILLS, July 26, (THEWILL) – The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions has asked the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, to furnish it with the identities of informants who gave tip-off leading to a raid on a property belonging to Nigeria’s former first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.
THEWILL recalls that the wife of former president Goodluck Jonathan had, three weeks ago, pleaded with Reps members through a petition, to call the security agencies harassing her and members of her family to order.
A law firm, Granville Abibo SAN & Co had also petitioned the Green Chamber over the same issue. Their legal team led by Sammie Somiari was present at the committee’s sitting on Wednesday.
The House committee also summoned the leaderships of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, as well as the Nigerian Police to appear as defendants in the petition sent to House on behalf of Patience by a Rep member from Rivers state, Gogo Bright.
As the only respondent present at Wednesday hearing of the case, the NDLEA represented by a director in the agency, Femi Oloruntoba told the lawmakers that his agency got a tip-off from an unnamed source to the effect that the property located at Igbeti Rock Street Maitama Abuja was being used for drug related activities.
“Based on the information, 8 officers of my agency visited the premises, after surveillance was conducted on the premises. It is not true that 50 officers from my agency visited the premises,” he said.
Oloruntoba said the officer who met two occupants of the premises provided them with a search endorsement form which they endorsed indicating that the search was conducted without any damage to the property or any loss of items.
Asked on how the agency remedies a situation where it breaks into a premises as alleged and did not find any exhibit, having inflicted structural damages on the property, he said the agency never knew that the premises belonged to the former first lady, adding that a letter was written by a solicitor on behalf of a man who claimed to be the owner of the premises.
The director, while pointing out that NDLEA can by law raid premises using identity cards as warrant, added that even the letter did not suggest illegality of the raid, but rather enquired if the search was a lawful exercise.
The Public Petitions Committee therefore demanded that the NDLEA provide it with the identity of the said source before the next adjourned date.
