Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ola Olukoyede, yesterday, dismissed accusation by the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the opposition was targeted for selective persecution, saying it targeted corruption both in the ruling and opposition parties.
Instead, the EFCC accused the opposition party of attempting to politicise ongoing corruption investigations.
The ADC has queried the EFCC’s urgent summons to former Senate President David Mark and former governor of Imo State, Emeka Ihedioha, saying the agency was being used by the government to harass and intimidate opposition party leaders, using media trial as its tool.
The party, which wondered why the anti-graft agency did not extend invitation to officials of Imo State government to give details of the financial expenses of the seven months administration of Emeka Ihedioha as governor, however, warned it against media trial.
But former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has also intervened in the matter, alleging that the EFCC has been turned into a tool to intimidate opposition political parties by the government and ultimately decimate them.
This, nonetheless, the EFCC, has disclosed that politically exposed persons in the country were back to making anticipatory assets declaration on their forms with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) as part of fraudulent ways of ripping off the nation.
However, responding to ADC’s allegations that the EFCC’s recent summons to some opposition figures were “politically motivated” and based on “old cases,” Olukoyede described the claims as self-serving, diversionary, and an attempt to whitewash individuals with corruption questions to answer.
“There is no time limit in criminal investigations. Fraud is fraud. Corruption is corruption. There are no sacred cows or partisan considerations in our work. Nothing will make an innocent person answer any charge from the EFCC,” he said.
Olukoyede maintained that EFCC’s investigative net cut across party lines, pointing to ongoing probes involving serving governors, ministers, and senior figures in the ruling party.
He stressed that he had faced no backlash when investigating those in government and should therefore not be condemned for probing opposition leaders.
Court records, he noted, showed that politicians from across the political spectrum were facing trial for alleged economic and financial crimes.
“Many serving governors of various political colours are on the EFCC radar. We will not be blackmailed into making full disclosures of ongoing investigations, no matter the provocation,” he added.
The EFCC chairman acknowledged ADC’s statement that the anti-graft agency “belongs to the Nigerian people” and was “funded by taxpayers, not the ruling party,” but argued that this was why the commission must remain impartial and unyielding.
In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the ADC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said it has become crystal clear that the EFCC was out on a hatchet job — a choreographed media trial targeted at bringing coalition leaders to disrepute.
The ADC ‘’questioned why the EFCC had suddenly found “urgent” reason to investigate David Mark 10 years after leaving the Senate Presidency, Ihedioha more than 5 years after his brief tenure as governor, and Tambuwal 2 years after leaving office as Sokoto governor.’’
The party said the pattern of ignoring APC stalwarts with fresher and well-documented cases, while targeting opposition figures with stale allegations, was proof of selective justice and an assault on political freedom.
‘’Following our earlier release on Monday, in which we alerted Nigerians about the plan to deploy the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as a political weapon by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), we wish to bring to the public’s attention fresh details that expose the extent of this coordinated assault on the opposition.
‘’The detention of one of our leaders, former Sokoto State Governor, Senator Aminu Tambuwal, has marked the start of the crackdown intended to intimidate key leaders of the opposition and discredit them through media trials.
‘’As shown in an EFCC correspondence currently circulating online, the Commission has now embarked on the investigation of another coalition chieftain, former Imo Governor, Emeka Ihedioha, with an “urgent” request to the officials to provide information related specifically to his brief seven months in office.
‘’Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, served as Governor of Imo State for just 7 months, from May 29, 2019, until the Supreme Court removed him on January 14, 2020 — a full 5 years and 7 months ago. We therefore wonder what makes investigating him suddenly ‘urgent’ now.
‘’Most notably, the EFCC has now surreptitiously started excavating all the files from the ADC Chairman, Senator David Mark’s tenure as President of the Nigerian Senate.
“Let us remind Nigerians that our Party Chairman, Senator Mark, served as the Senate President for 8 years, from June 6, 2007, to June 6, 2015 — making him the longest-serving Senate President in our history.
“He left office 10 years and 2 months ago. Three Senate Presidents after, the EFCC suddenly remembered that he was a Senate President,’’ the ADC image maker said.
According the Abdullahi, ‘’While the ADC, as a party, stands for adherence to the rule of law and due process, like all Nigerians, we question the curious timing, selective targets, and political motivations that now seem to define the EFCC’s actions.
“A fight against corruption that begins and ends with the opposition is not justice — it is persecution. We have no doubts that this is witch-hunting; it is the APC government weaponising anti-corruption to do its political battle.
‘’Having failed to stop the coalition, the jittery ruling party’s next move is to discredit its leaders by getting the EFCC to accuse them of looting the entire treasuries.
“These are calculated media trials, which start and end with the accusation, the scandal, and the consequent lowering of public estimation. It matters little whether there is a basis for these accusations — the game is the circus show,” he said.
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar raised the alarm over how the EFCC has been turned into a tool to intimidate opposition political parties by the government.
Atiku stated that a former governor of Sokoto State, Senator Aminu Tambuwal, was arrested because he was a member of the opposition party.
He explained that the current intimidation style of using the EFCC was not the reason, he and former President Olusegun Obasanjo strived hard to establish the agency.
In a statement he personally signed, Atiku said, ‘’The only reason the EFCC has detained Tambuwal was because he was a member of the opposition Coalition, stressing it was a continuation of the Tinubu-led administration’s agenda to harass, intimidate, and decimate the opposition.
‘’The reality unfolding before us today is that the Tinubu administration, as with other aspects, has objectified the fight against corruption as a political tool to coerce opposition leaders into the ruling party.
‘’We are living witnesses to a growing trend where the state and its operators have assumed the roles of a bully by making corruption and the fight against it a political agenda. Certainly, that is not the objective for which I worked hard during our administration to create the EFCC.
‘’It is as though today, anyone who associates with the opposition is a target for phantom corruption allegations and, it is as though, as soon as they are coerced into the political agenda of President Tinubu, their ‘sins’ are forgiven.
‘’That, definitely, is not how to build institutions. That, certainly, is not how to fight the monster of corruption. Indeed, such tendencies provide the stimulant for corruption to thrive.
‘’We have seen how the EFCC has been used to empty opposition state governors into the ruling party, and the tea party is not about to end anytime soon.
‘’While the genuine fight against corruption is a matter that requires the total support of all Nigerians, the objectification of it as a political agenda should be roundly condemned by all in civil society spaces and friends of Nigeria in the international community.
‘’We have in recent times witnessed the use of anti-corruption agencies in coercing political leaders into the ruling party. Our assurance to Nigerians is that we would never succumb to this anti-democratic machinations of railroading our people into a one-party dictatorship,’’ Atiku stated.
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