EFCC meet with Amos Adamu

Amos Adamu, FIFA Executive Committee member who was banned for three years by FIFA from all football related activities for his role in the cash-for-vote scandal, was yesterday arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

He arrived the commission’s office yesterday morning and was interrogated for several hours by operatives of the anti-graft agency over how the N24 billion budgeted for the 2003 All Africa Games, whose organising committee he headed, was spent.

Adamu returned to Nigeria on Friday night from Europe where he had been since the cash-for-vote scandal broke in October.

Billion naira “PR”

The former Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC) is also expected to explain how N1.3 billion was spent as “PR”.

Femi Babafemi, the spokesperson of the EFCC said Adamu is being quizzed for another 180 million naira involving his wife as well as an 80 million naira expenditure involving his son-in-law.

Adamu was expected to be granted administrative bail last night according to Babafemi, who confirmed that the FIFA executive committee member had indeed been questioned by the commission.

“He will be granted bail tonight (yesterday) but we are seizing his passport so that he’ll be available anytime we need him,” Babafemi said.

Adamu’s arrest comes barely 24 hours after he appeared before the House of Representatives where he defended himself over the cash-for-vote scandal, which broke after English newspaper, Sunday Times of London released a video in which Adamu reportedly asked for money in order to cast his vote for the United States after the undercover reporters posed as businessmen representing American interests.

After the FIFA ethics committee handed its verdict in November, Adamu, the former Director of Sports Development in the Ministry of Sports and until the vote scandal, President of the West African Football union (WAFU) indicated he was going to appeal the decision insisting he was innocent of the charge against him.

He also authorised his lawyers to head to court to stop the EFCC from interrogating him over the cash-for-vote scandal. The case came up for hearing on December 13 with Adamu asking the court to declare that the EFCC lacked jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute him over the matter.

He also prayed the court to restrain the EFCC and the police from infringing his right to personal liberty as enshrined in Section 35 of the 1999 Constitution. His lawyer, Niyi Ayoola-Daniels, told the court that FIFA was not an agency of the Nigerian government and as such the EFCC could not interrogate him in his capacity as the football body’s executive committee member. The case was adjourned to 17th January, 2011.