Senator Jonah Jang, the Ex-Governor of Plateau State and sitting senator representing Plateau North in the National Assembly is said to have been detained by EFCC for the past 2 days without recourse to law.

Speaking to ViewPointNigeria this afternoon 9^th May 2017, the Senators media aide, Mr Clinton Garuba narrated the ordeal -calling it unfortunate, pathetic and callous. He said “the intimidation of the current APC leadership against our principal on account of his plans to contest the presidency in 2019 is unfortunate and truly worrying”. “Everybody must be free to contest for whatever office they so desire without intimidation and cheap blackmail”.

Speaking further, he said – “there is no doubt that the travails of Senator Jang is similar to what several other seating senators who oppose the APC government are facing, e.g., Senator Dino Melaye, Senator Sani Shehu, Senator Isa Misau, Senator Bukola Saraki etc”. Still speaking, he said “The presidency in conjunction with various states have taken the view that they must clip the wings of key senators in order to have a clear course – but I tell you, this campaign of calumny is nothing new and it too will pass”.

Furthermore, Mr Garuba lamented why the EFCC has detained the honourable senator for 2 days (since Monday 7^th May 2017) without arraignment. He said, “The law says, you cannot detain anyone beyond 24 hours without charging such to court -so why the flagrant disregard to the law?” We are now left with no choice than to institute a legal case of the abuse of fundamental human rights of the Honourable Senator”.

Asked to narrate the ordeal, Senator Jang’s media aide confirmed that Minister of Information, Alh. Lai Muhammed had a few weeks back averred that Senator Jang had embezzled N12 billion from Plateau State’s coffers.

That having put out that assertion out in the public domain, Senator Jang’s team wrote a letter to Lai Muhammed asking him to retract the assertion, else they go to court. But that instead of retracting, Lai Muhammed then directed Ibrahim Magu (EFCC boss) to tighten the noose around the senator.

As such, the ex-chief cashier of the government (Mr Yusuf Pam) and permanent secretary for security (Mr Habila Dung) were picked up by the EFCC, detained for weeks. Statements were extracted from them and over the last few weeks were coerced to change it.

Asked about what the charges relate to, the aide said most of them are trumped-up charges put forward by key actors within PLSG. He also suggested that the current member representing Jos South/Jos East, Hon Edward Pwajok is also actively working with PLSG to build up the case Senator Jang.

And then concluded by saying, that Senator Jang will be vindicated because his record of service remains unblemished and that the political witch-hunt will pass.

Already, the EFCC has lodged a 12-count charge against Senator Jang at the Plateau State High Court and the matter will come up for hearing in the next few weeks.

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The “Dino-like” treatment of PLSG & EFCC against Jang will fail – Media Aide