Abaribe Arrested for Exposing N30bn Budget Fraud by FG, IPOB Alleges

• DSS denies family access to senator, says lawyer

By Deji Elumoye in Abuja

Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) yesterday alleged that the federal government arrested Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe because he allegedly exposed N30 billion budget fraud perpetrated by the APC government.

This is coming as Abaribe’s lawyer has raised the alarm that the senator has remained incommunicado since he was picked up by security operatives in Abuja on Friday. 

IPOB has given the government 48 hours to release the senator as “he did not do anything wrong.”

IPOB described Abaribe as “a patriotic Nigerian, fighting corruption more than those who profess change and claim they are fighting corruption.”

The group warned that “if Senator Abaribe is not released before 6p.m. tomorrow Monday, June 25 (today), it will call for a day of rage against the government of Nigeria and her agents in the South-east and South-south, pleading with British government and the rest of the civilised world to call Nigerian government to order.”

IPOB in a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, claimed that “the revelation by Abaribe remains an indisputable fact that no amount of blackmail with the name of IPOB will ever eradicate.”

According to IPOB, “attempting to use the issue of IPOB agitation to deflect attention away from the real motive behind the public arrest of Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe is a ploy that will not wash off from the public the corrupt activities of APC government and its leadership.

“Every child knows who the real terrorists are in Nigeria. They remain the fourth largest terror network in the world, responsible for large scale ethnic cleansing in the Middle Belt and beyond,” IPOB said.

Meanwhile, Abaribe’s lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, told THISDAY, yesterday that all efforts by the family, his physician and himself to see Abaribe had been thwarted by security operatives.

“We have made all attempts through official channels for his doctor, family members and myself to see him and up till this moment after visiting the DSS headquarters in Abuja to look for him, we still don’t have any information about him since the security people left with him at about 11.30pm after searching his house on Friday”, he further said.