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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.