FAROUKGATE: Lawmaker Denies Collecting Alleged Bribe Money.

As confusion continue to trail the latest bribery scandal rocking Nigeria’s legislature, federal lawmaker, Adams Jagaba yesterday wrote to the Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, denying possession of the $620,000 bribe money offered the chairman, Ad Hoc committee that probed the federal government’s petroleum subsidy regime, Farouk Lawan.

Lawan claims he formally wrote Jagaba, who chairs the House committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, informing him of moves by oil tycoon, Femi Otedola, to bribe the subsidy probe panel.

The embattled subsidy panel chair claimed to have attached, in his purported letter to Jagaba, the sum of $620,000 which Mr. Otedola paid.

Before yesterday’s official refutal, Jagaba had consistently avoided media inquiries on the matter since the scandal went public.

Otedola, in an interview with a national newspaper, said Lawan and the Secretary of the Committee, Mr. Boniface Emenalo, had collected $620,000 from him in a sting operation masterminded by security agencies.

Meanwhile, Farouk Lawan did not turn up at the Force Criminal Investigation Department police station yesterday.

A source in the FCID stated that Lawan was expected at the police station to help police to unravel the mystery in the alleged bribery episode rocking the House of Representatives.

The source disclosed that the police were investigating the members of the Special Task Force handling the investigation who allowed Lawan to go home to take his bath at the weekend.