CSOs, Lawyers Caution EFCC Over Amended Charges Against Yahaya Bello

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has been challenged to save the image of Nigeria by avoiding political battles which are counterproductive to the robust anti-corruption policy of the President Bola Tinubu administration.

The appeal was made yesterday by civil society organisations and human rights lawyers who reflected on the amended fraud charges which the commission filed against the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello.

Court records showed that the offences for which the former governor is charged by the anti-graft agency pre-dated his administration.

The activists and lawyers under the umbrella of the Committee for The Defence of Democracy and Rule of Law, said the seeming fixation of the anti-graft agency on particular targets, fierce media trial and the network of opposition figures publicly displaying their affinity with the commission on particular matters easily reflected political hatchet jobs that must be discouraged.

The co-convener of the committee, Barrister Kayode Mogbojuri, who spoke on behalf of the over 100 CSOs at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, said the EFCC could not afford to become a tool of political witch-hunt in the hands of every disgruntled politicians, seeking political retribution against opponents or perceived enemies and advised the helmsman, Ola Olukoyede, to shut out real enemies of the commission.

He said,  “For instance, the way it (the EFCC) is handling the current corruption allegations against the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, is becoming a case of clear political witchhunt by his political opponents for whom the EFCC seems to be a ready tool to be manipulated into fighting their proxy wars.

“In every country that the fight against corruption has been politicized, corruption has not only thrived but also imploded. Politics and law enforcement should be water and oil that cannot mix,” he stated.

The activists said the fact that the amended charge read that the former governor committed the said offence sometime in September 2015, when he had not even become governor, also showed that it was a hurried attempt to nail him without due diligence, adding that saying it was an error would only compound the embarrassment this had earned for the nation’s anti-corruption struggle.