Arms Deal: How EFCC Raided Ex-VP Sambo’s Office

Still shopping for evidence to nail top Nigerians who might have benefitted from the $2.1 billion arms cash, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have raided the Abuja office of former Vice President, Namadi Sambo, carting away $50,000 from his safe.

The raid was carried out, weekend, on the building which houses a top European High Commission’s Visa Processing Centre opposite the National Defence College, Abuja, throwing some occupants into confusion.

A source close to the operation confirmed to Vanguard, yesterday, that the operatives broke into the safe kept by the former vice president and removed whatever valuable they found, including top branded wrist watches, assets declaration forms, and list of landed property.

The raid, it was learned, followed the discovery that one of Sambo’s aide, known as Daboh, was found to have collected N25 million from the embattled National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisah Metuh, as part of the sum he got from the former NSA, Dasuki Sambo.

Although Daboh was arrested on January 11 by the EFCC and later released after taking statement from him, the operatives swooped on the ex-VP’s office on Saturday with the hope of extracting “incriminating evidence.”

The raid took place barely a few days after Sambo had moved some vital documents from his residence to the office in the Central Business District, in many bags, known as “Ghana-Must-Go, which were thought to contain foreign currencies

The raid also coincided with the trip of Sambo to the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where he is undergoing treatment on one of his legs and for some religious purposes.

Sambo’s lawyers protest invasion

But the raid, it was learned, has infuriated Sambo’s lawyers, who felt that it was improper for the EFCC to break into the office of their client without a valid search warrant.

In response to the development, the lawyers, yesterday, fired a strongly worded letter of protest to the EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, asking him to direct his men to repair the destroyed property in the office.

But the EFCC is reported to have left behind three armed policemen to guard the place until the doors and other damaged property were repaired.

A source close to the former vice president confirmed last night that they were trying to get in touch with him and brief him on the ugly development.

The source said: “I think the EFCC operatives were disappointed that they could not find any reasonable amount of money or any serious evidence of corruption against the former president.

“They had thought that the former vice president had taken some money to the office which they could take as evidence against him. But they were disappointed as they did not get anything tangible from the office,” the source said.