The immediate-past Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Doyin Okupe, has disclosed that his rearrest by the Department of State Service on the request of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, was erroneous and should not have happened.
Okupe who was arrested at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport on Thursday morning said his passport had long been withheld by the Federal High Court Abuja even before finding him guilty of violating sections of the Money Laundering Act that attracted two and a half years imprisonment.
The former Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Olusegun Obasanjo and Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan added that the officers of the EFCC in Lagos and Abuja have apologised for the error in his arrest.
Read Also: Osuntokun, Replaces Okupe As Labour Party’s Campaign DG
Narrating the ordeal on his Twitter handle, Okupe wrote, ‘I was arrested and detained at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos this morning, January 12, on my way to the UK for medicals, years after my passport was withheld by the FHC, Abuja.
‘I just left the EFCC office where the senior and younger officers in Lagos and Abuja apologised to me for the error.’
Querying the action, he asked if it was an occupational hazard.
The Department of State Service has explained the reasons behind the rearrest of the immediate past Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Doyin Okupe, at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos State, citing the cooperation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as the mastermind for the interception.
Africa Today News, New York reports that on Monday, December 19, 2022, reported that Okupe was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for breaching the Money Laundering Act.
According to the EFCC that engineered the arrest, Okupe was charged to court for receiving N702 million in illegal payment from public funds meant to procure arms to fight insurgency in 2019. He was convicted of the offence by the Federal High Court.