The Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta, Ogun State, has demanded N2.5 billion in compensation from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the 10 August raid on its premises.
According to the management, the amount is sought to atone for what it described as the severe damage to the reputation, business, and financial standing of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Daily Trust reports that the EFCC operatives had carried out a sting operation in the wee hours of Sunday at OOPL, where they arrested 93 suspected internet fraudsters and seized 18 vehicles and mobile devices.
Briefing newsmen on Wednesday, OOPL Managing Director, Vitalis Ortese, alleged that the EFCC team, led by an officer identified as ‘Olapade’, arrived with over 50 armed men in a ‘gestapo-style’ operation, firing gunshots and threatening to kill attendees. He said the raid triggered panic, chaos, and injuries among guests fleeing the scene.
Ortese also demanded immediate compensation for those arrested and for owners of impounded vehicles, including N1 billion for bodily injuries allegedly sustained during the raid.
He insisted that both the EFCC and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) issue separate public apologies, to be published widely in print, broadcast, and online media.
Ortese warned that if the demands were not met within seven days, the OOPL would take legal action without further recourse to either agency.
He said, _Both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Nigeria Police Force (NPF) are jointly and severally liable for the deliberate embarrassing and utterly malicious damage occasioned by their invasion of the 9th and 10th August, 2025 as aforestated.
‘We are fully persuaded that the acts are not only aggravated, unconstitutional, oppressive, capricious and arbitrary, the actions are also clearly actuated by malice against the institution of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library and also of its Chief Promoter HE Chief Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR who was Head of State (1976-1979) and President of Nigeria (1999-2007).
‘The foregoing actions are clearly calculated not only to oppress and brutalise as well as violate in gross terms, the fundamental and other rights of the more than one hundred (100) persons as aforestated; but also calculated to wreak maximum damage on the legitimate, commercial business and financial interests of our Client as well as damage the standing of our Client and its Chief Promoter in the eyes of right thinking members of the public both in Nigeria and internationally.
‘We therefore DEMAND a comprehensive investigation be undertaken by all relevant Security Agencies with their reports openly published, especially regarding the brutalization of our patrons being citizens who had apparently done nothing wrong nor apparently infracted any law other than engaging in a party as allowed under the law.
‘That relevant authorities of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, particularly the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on the one hand, and the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force on the other, both issue separate public apologies to be widely published in all major media platforms including television, the print as well as social outfits.
‘That immediate restitution for the damage caused, be made to those persons who were arrested and whose vehicle were carted away by the invasion force of the Police and EFCC, as well as for bodily injuries suffered by these persons numbering at least one hundred (100); be paid in the amount of at least one billion naira.
‘We also demand that a further two billion and five hundred million naira (N 2.5 billion) be paid in token acknowledgment and atonement for the immense damage caused to the reputation, business and our financial reputation as well to the reputation of our Chief Promoter (HE Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR).
‘Finally, we have further instructed our lawyers that should these demands not be met in full within the next seven (7) days from today, Wednesday, 13th August 2025, we shall have no alternative but to proceed to seek redress in a competent court of law without further recourse to the Police and the EFCC; and in which case our demands will NOT be limited to the foregoing’.
