The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has warned politicians to desist from sending frivolous petitions against political opponents as the 2023 general election approaches.
ICPC chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, said some politicians tend to weaponise anti-corruption agencies with politically motivated petitions in order to outdo their opponents, warning that such moves will not work with the ICPC.
ICPC spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua, in a statement said the anti-graft agency’s chairman stated this while hosting the leadership of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
According to Owasanoye, “usually when the season for competition comes, there is a spike in politically motivated petitions for wild-goose chases. Some are brazen enough to tell you that ‘we should make sure to stop Mr A from contesting’ and they will bring a petition forward. That is not our job, and we will not get involved in those things. We pack those type of petitions aside basically. Even if there is implication of merit within the complaint, we will say ‘go and compete first’. We are not going to be the one to be used to give you the fair or unfair advantage. When the competition is over, we will decide on the merit or otherwise of what you have brought forward.”
He, however, noted that ICPC has an existing understanding with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on how to go about genuine electoral petitions when the need arises.
“We do have an understanding with INEC that in cases where contestants challenge each other in court and the decision says somebody forged a certificate for example, INEC will send those things to us, and we are prosecuting a few of them at the moment. Those are ways we will add value without compromising ourselves or exposing our officers to the compromise and desperation of politicians during the contest,” he said.
Ogugua also said that earlier in his address, the chairman of IPAC, Engineer Yabagi Sani, stated that the motive for the visit was for effective collaboration and support of the anti-graft agency in ensuring that politicians with questionable characters were not elected into office.
