The chairman of senate committee on media, Senator Dino Melaye on Saturday, has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is planning to raise false allegations against him.
The often outspoken senator who is presently in Morocco, using his page on social media site Twitter, said he had been alerted that the EFCC had begun a forensic probe of all his accounts.
The Kogi-born lawmaker, however, stated that he was prepared for the anti-graft agency.
The senator thereafter proceeded to share pictures from Casablanca in Morocco where he is attending the Crans Montana Forum on Africa and South Cooperation alongside Senate President Bukola Saraki.
Melaye is a noted ally of the senate president and indeed worked hard for the latter’s emergence as senate president against the will of leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Melaye has also regularly joined other senators to attend Saraki’s trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) where he is facing trial for false declaration of assets. Operatives of the EFCC have appeared at the trial as major prosecution witnesses.
In 2015, when the EFCC summoned Saraki’s wife, Toyin, over allegations of money laundering while her husband was Kwara state governor between 2003 and 2011, Senator Dino Melaye accompanied her to the EFCC office in Abuja.
Many observers at the time taunted Melaye for supposedly acting as ‘bodyguard’ to the senate president’s wife. In response, the senator claimed he accompanied her as a private investigator and anti-corruption crusader.
Senator Melaye was identified as one of the most vocal lawmakers against the confirmation of acting chairman of the EFCC, Mr Ibrahim Magu as substantive head of the agency following his second nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari.
There have also been insinuations that Melaye and another senator financially induced their colleagues to ensure Magu’s nomination was rejected a second time by the upper chamber of the National Assembly.
The EFCC is yet to respond to Senator Melaye’s claims.
