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By Myke Agunwa, Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of carrying out selective investigations and behaving like a political hit squad for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The coalition party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi on Monday, warned that the trend is eroding public trust in the institution and undermining the real fight against corruption if not checked.
Since the emergence of a united coalition against President Bola Tinubu’s re-election, ADC claimed that the EFCC has resorted to re-opening closed cases, digging up files from years past, and targeting members of opposition parties. “This is not the work of an impartial anti-graft body. It is the work of a political enforcer.”
“In recent days, several senior members of the Opposition Coalition have received EFCC summons that are clearly politically motivated. These are not fresh cases arising from new evidence but new files opened in reaction to emergent political affiliations to intimidate key opposition figures”.
He lamented that the EFCC has derailed from its purpose for which is was created which include being “a fearless defender of the Nigerian people’s trust, applying the law evenly to all, friend or foe, ruling party or opposition. Today, that vision appears to have been compromised. The Commission now operates like a department of the APC, deployed to fight government critics and opposition figures thereby achieving what the government cannot achieve through public debate”.
The party called on Nigerians to note how investigations into ruling party allies quietly fade away while opposition figures are dragged before the court of public opinion with sometimes decade-old allegations, hastily revived and dressed up as fresh evidence. He described the development as selective prosecution and emphasized that “selective prosecution is the death of justice.
“It does appear that in today’s Nigeria, one’s guilt or innocence depends on one’s party membership, not evidence. For example, since a certain former governor defected to the APC with his state’s entire political machinery, the EFCC’s investigations into his administration have vanished from public view. Not a question has been asked. Not a document leaked. Not a single update. Yet the same EFCC still somehow find means to reopen old cases against opposition leaders and pursue the stale allegations against them.
“It does not augur well for the EFCC if people think that all you need to point the accusing hands of the Commission in your direction is to stand opposed to the ruling party and all that it takes for protection is to align with the government. Unfortunately, this is the widely established perception in Nigeria today, which the commission, by its recent actions, including the ongoing surreptitious harassment of opposition leaders, has given credence to, ” the statement read in part.
ADC called on all Nigerians, civil society organisations, and the independent media to resist the dangerous slide into dictatorship and misuse of public institutions to achieve partisan objectives. It added that “EFCC does not belong to the APC. It belongs to the Nigerian people. It is funded by taxpayers, not the ruling party.”