INDICTED Jonathan’s Aide, Kingsley Kuku Flags-Off Ondo Guber Ambition In Ghana

Unprepared to run into the waiting hands of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Kingsley Kuku, former special adviser to immediate past president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has chosen to unveil his governorship ambition in neighbouring Ghana.

Kuku, a frontline in the race for the governorship ticket of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State was in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, recently where he hosted a team of his campaign foot soldiers from across the state. The team was led to the West African country by the immediate past state chairman of the PDP, Hon. Ebenezer Alabi and a former commissioner, now special adviser-designate in the state, Ola Mafo. Alabi, who confirmed the meeting with the former presidential adviser, said Kuku was fully prepared for the governorship race of the state just as his posters have flooded the nooks and crannies of Ondo State shortly after the Ghana meeting.

Former spokesperson of the presidential amnesty office, which Kuku headed concurrently, Dan Alabrah, could neither confirm nor deny the meeting his principal had with his political associates, but promised to get across to New Telegraph. He had yet to do so as at the time of going to press yesterday. According to the former PDP state chairman, Kuku remained the best material for the governorship of Ondo State.
He said that the EFCC witch-hunt was not capable of stopping him. ”Yes, we held a meeting with Kuku in Ghana last month. There is no doubt about that. It was in furtherance of the governorship ambition that has been in the pipeline. ”You know he had not formally made up his mind since all the noise about him.


But after the meeting, it was resolved that he should give the gov-ernorship project a shot and he has agreed that it is a project to pursue. He has given us the signal to start the process and God will see us through because Kuku remains the best material Ondo State PDP needs to sustain political power,” Alabi told New Telegraph. Kuku has been out of the country for upward of six months.
The former presidential aide was invited by the EFCC shortly after leaving office to answer questions of alleged graft levelled against him while he held sway at the Presidential Amnesty Programme between December 2010 and May 2015. But Kuku wrote the EFCC through his lawyer, saying he needed to undergo medical attention for knee surgery in the United States, promising to honour the summons of the commission at the end of September. He, however, slammed a suit on the agency and other security agencies from arresting him or probing the amnesty programme.
To this end, Justice Valentine Ashi of the Federal High Court barred the EFCC, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Department of State Services (DSS), Police, Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) from arresting or detaining the principal actor in the management of the programme.
In his ruling, Justice Ashi also barred all the anti-graft and security agencies from taking any action on the alleged fraud pending the determination of a suit instituted against them. Kuku had, in the motion argued by his counsel, Mr. Ademola Abimbola, complained that he had already been invited for interrogation by the EFCC through a letter dispatched to him and that unless the court intervenes, he may be arrested and detained by the anti-graft body.

It could not be immediately confirmed if Kuku’s preference for Ghana to unveil his governorship ambition has some connections with the case he instituted against the nation’s security agencies or a later alarm he raised concerning moves by agents of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to implicate him for terrorism.

The former presidential aide, in a press released three weeks ago, alleged that in their desperation to hang him to the stakes, some hawks in the administration of Buhari were conspiring with security agencies to arrest him at the airport upon his return to Nigeria on charges bordering on terrorism. Meanwhile, a top source at the EFCC has disclosed that the agency was planning to have an arrangement with Interpol to track down past officials of government who were on self-exile.
”The impression that once you are invited you will be prosecuted is wrong. A person under investigation can merely come forward and state his case in writing and might not necessarily be arraigned unless there is evidence to that effect. ”But in our case in Nigeria, people bolt away at the next opportunity and this frustrates the agency because you need to have a nexus for a prima facie case to be pursued.

Under the circumstances we find ourselves, we are likely to involve the Interpol so that those who are on selfexile can be encouraged to come home and clear their names,” the source said. EFCC’s spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, refrained from comments when confronted with the visit of the former presidential aide to Ghana as well as the possible step on the part of the agency.
Source: New Telegraph