The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) today raided the Abuja offices of BLUEPRINT Magazine, a news magazine, and arrested eight people, including two general managers and an executive director.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) today raided the Abuja offices of BLUEPRINT Magazine, a news magazine, and arrested eight people, including two general managers and an executive director.
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The proprietor of the magazine, Mohammed Idris, told SaharaReporters that the raid came to the management as a shock since the EFCC neither gave them any notice nor told them the reason for the action.
Saharareporters had learned that Mr. Idris was a close friend of former Agriculture minister, Abba Ruma, but he vehemently denied that his news magazine enjoyed any investment from Ruma. We have learned, however, that a comment in the magazine referring to internal arms sales insinuating that retired General Owoeye Azazi, the National Security Adviser, was involved in the selling of arms may have irked the NSA’s office.
But the EFCC spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, told Saharareporters that the agency was acting on a petition which emanated from the office of the NSA indicating that the premises of the magazine was being used to print counterfeit contract papers relating to contracts that were not executed.
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In a statement this afternoon, Mr. Babafemi explained that the action at the premises of BLUEPRINT/Market Magazine on Mississipi Street in Maitama District followed an intelligence report that over 20 operating in the same premises were being used to defraud government agencies. He had earlier confirmed to us that the EFCC had obtained a search warrant from the court to seize documents relating to the petition. In the statement, he said that three of the companies involved were said to have been used to defraud a federal government agency of over N66 million last January.
“Members of the public especially the media are therefore assured that the raid is purely in connection to a criminal investigation and so has nothing to do with gagging of the press as being insinuated,” Mr. Babafemi said.
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