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SENATE PRESIDENCY: EFCC did not withdraw from Goje’s case, AGF took over, Wahab Shittu clarifies

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SENATE PRESIDENCY: EFCC did not withdraw from Goje's case, AGF took over, Wahab Shittu clarifies

Mr. Wahab Shittu, the prosecuting counsel handling the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC case against former Governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje, has said the EFCC did not withdraw from the case but that it was taken over by the Office of the Attorney General of Federation.

There had been reports that the EFCC had stepped down from the case shortly after Goje, a former aspirant for the position of Senate President of the soon to inaugurated 9th Senate, met with President Muhammadu Buhari behind closed doors. Goje, after the meeting, had announced that he was stepping down for the choice of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Ahmed Lawan.

Though it is believed in many quarters that the withdrawal of the EFCC from the case was part of the deal Goje had with President Buhari to sacrifice his ambition, Shittu said it was office of the AGF that took over the case in the exercise of its powers under the Constitution.

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According to him, the anti-graft agency had no authority to challenge the exercise of such powers of the office of the AGF.

He said: “It was simply a constitutional prerogative of the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation in the exercise of its powers under section 174 of the Constitution.

“EFCC has no authority to challenge the exercise of such powers.

“So it was the AGF that took over the case, it was not the EFCC that withdrew.”

The EFCC had been prosecuting Goje for the past eight years over an alleged N25 billion fraud, but the AGF took over on Friday at an emergency hearing before Justice Babatunde Quadri at the Federal High Court in Jos.

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