By; ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna
Mahdi Shehu, has denied involvement in an allegation of an attempt to defraud former Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, of the sum of N500m.
Mahdi, in a statement through his law, Abubakar Mustapha, disclosed that he was arrested and detained in Abuja by the Inspector- General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Unit ostensibly on a petition written by A. A. MALAMI, SAN & CO. (the law firm of the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation) for and on behalf of ABUBAKAR MALAMI, SAN the said immediate past AGF and his family.
According to him, “Although, the petition made allegations of hacking and compromise of emails and bank accounts of the former AGF and some members of his family as well as an attempt to open a fake bank account in the name of a member of the family and extortion of about N 20,000,000.00 (twenty million Naira) from a member of the family by a syndicate, no mention was made of the name of Muhammad Mahdi Shehu in the Petition.
“However, the Police claimed to have arrested Muhammad Madhi Shehu in his hotel room in Abuja based on a tip by Abubakar Malami, SAN relating to an alleged WhatsApp chat between him and Madhi Shehu claiming that the latter attempted to extort N500,000,000.00 (five hundred million naira) from him.
“The said allegation by Malami, SAN and the arrest of our Client, Mahdi Shehu is coming just a day after he made a tweet on X (formerly Twitter) accusing some prominent members of the Government of former President Mohammed Buhari from the North of sponsoring a campaign of calumny against Obazee, the Special Investigator appointed by President Bola Tinubu to investigate the affairs of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele in a recent Report in the Daily Trust Newspaper.”
He added that “Mahdi Shehu had also in the past few months made publications very critical of some prominent members of the Government of former President Mohammed Buhari especially Malami, SAN and specifically called for his arrest and prosecution.
“The arrest and detention of our Client may therefore not be unconnected with concerted efforts by Malami, SAN and other prominent members of the Government of former President Mohammed Buhari accused by Mahdi Shehu to deal with him for having the temerity to dare them publicly and to silence and put him away from circulation for a long time.
“It will be recalled that our client, Mahdi Shehu was similarly arrested and detained twice over long spans of time by the same IGP Monitoring Unit between 2021 and 2022 over allegations he made against top officials of the Katsina State Government under the leadership of then governor of the state, Aminu Bello Masari of corruptly and fraudulently diverting billions of Naira belonging to the Katsina State Government under the guise of security spendings.
“On those occasions, the FCT High Court and the Federal High Court, Abuja Division found the arrest and detention of Mahdi Shehu unlawful and unconstitutional and respectively awarded N5,000,000.00 (Five Million Naira) and N20,000,000.00 (Twenty Million Naira) to him against the Police for his wrongful arrest and detention.
While we concede to the right of the Police to investigate any allegation of crime against any citizen including our client, we humbly call on the Police to respect the constitutional right of our client to be released on bail pending investigation or charged to court within 24 hours of his arrest regard being had of the fact that there are Courts of competent jurisdiction within Abuja to entertain any charge in respect of the allegations against him (section 35(5)(a) of the 1999 Constitution). We also call on the Police to respect our Client’s right to the dignity of his human person (section 34(1) of the 1999 Constitution) by affording him decent treatment while in their custody.”
He therefore, noted that his client denies categorically the allegation of extorting money from Malami, SAN or any member of his family and indeed any of the allegations made against him by Malami, SAN and his chambers or family.
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