The attention of Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki's office has been drawn to an article publication on Leadership newspaper on Thursday 1st August 2013 where Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki was alleged to have shunned an invitation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). We will like to emphasise and categorically state Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki has not received any letter of invitation from EFCC.

When on Monday the said paper wrote the story that the agency intends to invite Senator Saraki for investigation on his tenure as Governor for 8 years and investigation into SGBN, in as much as we do not think it’s on the pages of newspapers that professional organisation like EFCC will invite people. Senator Saraki nevertheless, immediately directed his office staff in Abuja, Ilorin and Lagos who are currently on recess to report to work to make sure they were on ground to receive any invitation and neither did we receive an invitation nor a visit from the EFCC officials on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

For the avoidance of doubt, those who have been a keen observer of this unfolding drama will recall that the agency has conducted an investigation in 2010, 2011 and 2012 without finding the Senator wanting. These are not new issues and Senator Saraki as stated that if he receives an invitation from the agency to assist them in their findings he will be more than happy to honour the invitation as he has nothing to hide, with regards his tenure as governor but rather he is proud of his achievements as governor of Kwara State.

As regards SGBN again this is not new as investigation on this was done over 10 years ago and during the investigations Senator Saraki while governor of Kwara State waived his immunity to answer questions by EFCC officials in Lagos as regards his time at the bank To set the record straight, there has been no invitation notice to the Distinguish Senator prior to the newspaper publication even as at the time of preparing this press statement there is still no invitation from EFCC. These are facts that can be easily correlated.

We would like to call the attention of the management of Leadership newspaper to avoid sensationalism in their reports without recourse to thorough investigation before accepting any story for publication or allow any overzealous employee use their platform to assassinate the character of anyone or push their own agenda.

We maintain that this sensational report must have been politically motivated to harass Senator Saraki or even push pressure on EFCC to act their script because as mentioned above these issues being raised today are not new so what's the sudden interest and frenzy 

Signed,

Bamikole Omishore