By Kolawole Ojebisi
A former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr Olu Agunloye, has dragged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission before an Abuja High Court, demanding a sum of N1bn as damages.
Agunloye told the court that the anti-graft commission is plotting to drag his name through the mud in relation to the Mambilla Power Project.
Agunloye made this claim on Thursday during cross-examination by EFCC counsel, Dr Wahab Shittu, SAN, in the defamation case he filed against the anti-graft commission before Justice Peter Kekemeke.
The claim aligns with the former minister’s position in his writ of summons in the suit, marked FCT/HC/CV/1199/2024, filed by his counsel, Adeola Adedipe, SAN, insisting that EFCC has damaged his good name.
“The EFCC is dragging my integrity into murky waters (sic) by charging me with corruption and fraud through a post published on its official website,” he said.
To drive home his point , Agunloye attached an online publication with the caption, ‘EFCC arraigns Agunloye over $6 billion fraud’, to the application.
Agunloye, therefore, asked the court to order the EFCC to declare that the post is false and defamatory.
He also sought an order for the EFCC to retract the defamatory publication against him and tender unreserved apologies.
The ex-minister further sought the payment of compensation of “N1 billion as general and exemplary damages to him”.
“It is a deliberate attempt by the EFCC to push things around, misinform the public and paint me as one reckless minister who was involved in a $6 billion contract and was eventually captured.
“It is an attempt to say that I awarded the contract without approval and to have taken a bribe of N5 million 16 years after and damaged the only property I have, which is my name.”
Recounting the genesis of his trouble with the Federal Government, Agunloye told the court that he was the Minister of Power when he wrote a memo to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the Mambilla Project, which was implemented on a Built, Operate and Transfer basis.
Asked if he obtained the approval of the then President, he said he requested the President to approve the project and the President approved it.
He added that he took a memo to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) as directed by then President Obasanjo.
According to the former minister, the Mambilla Project he awarded in 2003 was not the subject of the international arbitration.
He added that “the subject matter of the arbitration instigated by Sunrise (Power and Transmission Company Limited) on the terms of settlement was the subject matter”.
Agunloye told the court that he was aware that the Federal Government was challenging matters arising from the Mambilla contract that was awarded in 2017 by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari and not the one he awarded in 2003.
According to him, the Federal Government cancelled the contract he awarded in 2003, which he said was at a zero cost to the government, six times and re-awarded it six times but ran into trouble the sixth time in 2017.
Justice Kekemeke adjourned the matter until October 30 for defence to open their case after Adedipe told the court that they (claimant) were closing theirs.
