Obanikoro's Daughter, Salewa, Invited

Former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu
Obanikoro, has reacted to Thursday’s arrest of his wife,
Alhaja Moroophat, by officials of the Department of State
Security Service, and condemned in its totality the
different versions of the agency’s narratives as published
by some media houses.
He had issued a statement giving the family’s side of the
story before the news of the invitation of his first daughter,
Salewa, broke.
Sources hinted THISDAY that the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), upon releasing Mrs. Obanikoro
on Thursday, had also asked her to report to their office
this Friday and that she should come with their first
daughter, whom they want for questioning in connection
with their investigation.
But in a statement signed by Obanikoro’s media aide, Mr.
Jonathan Eze, the former minister urged that his wife
should not be maligned in whatever way, neither should
facts which are supposed to be sacred distorted to skew
investigation, thereby influencing public opinion negatively
on a patriotic, hard-working and innocent woman, who is
completely apolitical.
He said: “We are saddened by the fact that the media was
awash with false and conflicting information about the
invitation of Senator Obanikoro’s wife. Ordinarily, we
considered ignoring these concocted lies but for the sake
of the discerning and right thinking public, hence the need
to straighten matters.
“First, Alhaja Moroophat has always been in the country
managing her businesses as against the lies that she
sneaked in last week from the United States. Second, No
documents were found in her possession and the lies that
she was arrested while trying to evacuate documents were
a fabrication and can only survive in their warped and
distorted minds. It should also be noted that the officials
only came to invite her for questioning and as against the
phrase that she was whisked away; her driver actually
drove her in her own car to the office of the DSS.
“Third, it was shamefully reported that the DSS were
involved because there were so many armed policemen
guiding her. This is another fabricated lie. The Obanikoros
stopped enjoying police protection from the day he left
office as minister and as a woman, who is above board in
all her dealings, she does not need one.
“Finally, we are using this medium to call on the officials of
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to
desist from persecuting an innocent woman, who has no
dealings at all with either Sylva McNamara or MOB
integrated that they are investigating.
“For emphasis, the innocent woman has a history of High
Blood Pressure and heart related ailments and as such,
should not be dragged into their biased and politicised
investigations. We have absolute confidence in the
judiciary and we hope to get justice in the course with the
proviso that they obey the rule of law and avoid
arbitrariness that we are seeing on daily basis.”
A family source however claimed that the invitation of
Salewa in addition to her mum’s has shown clearly that
the political slant to the alleged investigation outweighs
the fight supposed against graft.
The source contended: “What business has Salewa and her
mum in this whole thing? You needed to have heard the
kind of questions they were asking the woman. Indeed, the
problem of our security architecture is intelligence and no
wonder they are always susceptible to abuse by every
successive government.”
According to the source, when the EFCC sought, albeit
unsuccessfully, an order to arrest Mrs. Obanikoro, it then
involved the DSS, from where it picked her up as part of its
own investigation. The source, which consistently queried
the involvement of the DSS in the matter, however warned
of the growing abuse of court processes and disregard for
the rule of law by the present administration, adding that
the country might pay dearly for it.