The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the arrest of the
Speaker, Clerk and nine members of the Kano State Legislature by the EFCC
as an undisguised case of political vendetta by a hurting presidency,
whose target is actually the State Governor.
In a statement in Lagos, Tuesday, by its Interim National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said
since the arrest of the lawmakers for carrying out their statutory duty of
approving a budget cannot be justified by any law,
it is clear to all discerning Nigerians that the only motive can only be
to harass and intimidate the lawmakers of a state that
recently escaped from the hell-hole called the PDP to join the APC.
It said the politically-motivated arrest also undoubtedly marked the
beginning of the long-expected series of persecution by a desperate
Federal Government, against APC states, in particular those states that
have recently ducked from the cascading PDP plague.
APC therefore called for the immediate release of the legislators by the
malleable EFCC, which has suddenly found enough resources from its
dried-up coffers to go after innocent men, when the same commission has
looked the other away while monumental corruption stalked the land,
whether it is the Oduahgate, the fuel subsidy scam or the SURE-P heist,
just to list a few.
”Nowhere in the world are lawmakers arrested for carrying out their
constitutional-mandated role of approving a budget. The world must be
having a good laugh at the lack of ingenuity by a government that is so
eager to extract a pound of flesh from supposed political enemies that it
would orchestrate arrests for offences unknown to law.
”The allegation that Gov. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s supplementary budget was
meant to cover-up a dubious transaction due to a budget review request to
the State Assembly to the value of 28 billion Naira, from the initial
budget of 24 billion Naira, is as spurious as it is laughable, just as the
EFCC’s claim that the arrest followed a petition by a stakeholder in the
state is questionable.
”The tragedy of the unfolding scenario, which will surely extend to other
APC states in the days ahead, is that a democratically-elected government
is toeing the well-worn vindictive path of a military dictatorship by
harassing and intimidating supposed opponents and stifling the opposition.
The Gestapo-style siege on the Kano House of Assembly is a throwback to
what Nigerians thought was a bygone era of military dictatorship. We hate
to say it, but we have been proven right in our warning in October 2013
that the President was using Rivers State to test-run fascism. Now, he
seems ready to roll,” the party said.
It vowed to use all constitutional means to resist any attempt to use the
institutions of state against the opposition; to use trumped-up charges to
victimize perceived political opponents, and to curtail the citizens’
constitutionally-sanctioned right of free association
”From the moment Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was dragged before the Code of
Conduct Tribunal over a case that lacked merit in every sense to the
arrest of Sule Lamido’s sons and the grounding of Gov. Chibuike Amaechi’s
plane, the Jonathan Administration has not relented in its search for any
crude measure to badger the opposition and perceived opponents to
submission.
”But if history is any guide, no force is good enough to stop an idea
whose time has come and, for us at the APC, the cheap shots from a
diminished presidency and the evil machinations of a crumbling behemoth
called the PDP can only serve to strengthen our resolve to rescue Nigeria
from the clutches of both entities, which are steeped in medieval tactics
of coercion, even as governance has suffered a crushing neglect,” APC
said.