I’ve been framed but I won’t be silenced — Shehu Sani reacts to allegation of extortion

Former Senator, Shehu Sani has officially reacted to allegation of collecting money from Sani Dauda, owner of ASD Motors which he allegedly promised to pass on to the acting chairman of the EFCC Ibrahim Magu, to influence an investigation, and also allegedly asking for more money to bribe the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), Ibrahim Tanko and some other judges to influence the outcome of a court case. 

In a statement released on Friday after his two houses were searched by operatives of the anti-graft agency, Sani alleged that his arrest is politically motivated as he also denied trying to bribe the CJN. 

He also accused the Federal Government of trying to use the bribery story to shut him up after he became a critic of the Buhari-led administration. 

The statement read; 

“The allegations of ‘extortion’ against me is baseless, fact-less, unfounded, hollow and unsubstantial.

“It is a scripted stream of mischievous concoctions and utter fabrications using a puppet state agent; all aimed at splashing faeces and mud on me.

“The extortion allegation is nothing but a wholesale falsehood, packaged in a phantom anti-graft facade to taint, stain and mute me. That shall never happen if I am alive.

“I have made my statement and provided all my facts against their package of lies and I demand the EFCC to make public all the sheets of our statements and supporting documents for the world to see.

“My detention is unfair, unjust, prearranged and politically motivated.

“Fascism thrives in frame up of its critics. They claim extortion and here they are closing my bank accounts, searching my houses and offices and demanding I declare my assets, of which I have already done that at the CCB (Code of Conduct Bureau) last year when I left the Senate. 

“Frame-up cannot silence me! I have never ever met with the CJN or any judge or judges or ever called directly or indirectly to offer to give or to give directly or indirectly any form of gratification from Alhaji Sani Dauda.

“I have never ever discussed with ASD on any form of bribe or gratification to be given to any judge or any EFCC official.

“The bribe story is phantom, the bribe story is a fake, imaginative work of fiction, cruelly crafted to smear me, to frame me and to justify my persecution.

“The bribe story is a heap of blatant lies and outright falsehood concocted and fabricated, using a front and the EFCC to premiere a state drama.

“Criminalising me or ‘framing me’ will not silence me, bend me or compromise me.”