APC: Fresh trouble for Ambode

•Faces perjury probe •May be arrested this week

NEWLY-ELECTED Lagos State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, is likely to be arrested by security agencies this week over an alleged criminal conduct, Sunday Tribune has learnt.

Checks within security circle pointed at Wednesday as the likely day he would be taken in for questioning and possible detention over alleged perjury.

His current travail is from within his party, with some party members behind the petition upon which the probe would be predicated.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the petition alleging perjury against Ambode was authored by Lagos APC Integrity Group, and that copies were submitted to the police and the Department of State Security Service (DSS).

ambode with tinubu

Attached to the petition, which got to the leadership of the two security bodies in Abuja last Wednesday, were documents to prove the alleged perjury against the governorship candidate.

The petitioners accused him of lying on oath by claiming in his Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination form in 1981 that he was from Ilaje in Ondo State, only to claim in his APC nomination form, on oath again, to be from Epe in Lagos State, during the governorship primary contest.

Photocopies of the said forms were attached to the petition.

The former Accountant-General of Lagos State is now said to be under security surveillance, to forestall his escape from the country.

A security source in Abuja disclosed that he would be declared wanted, if he managed to escape from the country before security agents got to him.

A member of the Integrity Group disclosed that the party members behind the petition decided to be open about it so that Ambode’s case would not be couched as impunity on the part of the Federal Government or harassment by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The development is seen as the continuation of the battles within the party over the selection of its governorship candidate.

Ambode, backed by the party’s national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, last Thursday, defeated 12 others to clinch the party’s ticket.

Eleven defeated aspirants had kicked against the process leading to the exercise and rejected the outcome.

There are two cases at the Federal High Court in Lagos challenging the process and conduct of the exercise.

It is on record that Tinubu also faced alleged perjury case aftermath his emergence as the governorship candidate of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 1999.

Late human rights lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, pursued the alleged perjury case against him to the Supreme Court level.

The apex court ruled that Tinubu, as governor, had immunity from investigation from the Inspector-General of Police as demanded by Fawehinmi.

The court, however, held that the police could make discreet investigation, but it was not permitted to come in contact with the governor in any way in the course of the probe.

The governor must also not know that he was being investigated.

Findings from such discreet probe, according to the apex court, could, however, be used in prosecuting the governor after office.

 

APC: Fresh trouble for Ambode