Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose,
has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission to charge the National Publicity Secretary
of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olisa Metuh, to court if the
commission has evidence of fraud against him.
The governor, who restated his support
for the anti-corruption war, bemoaned a situation where the commission
would first arrest and detain a person before shopping for evidence
against him.
“The EFCC appears to be operating a
system in which an accused person is first arrested, detained endlessly
while the anti-corruption agency goes about looking for evidence.”
Fayose, who spoke through his Special
Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka,
challenged the EFCC to also act on petitions submitted to it against All
Progressives Congress chieftains and the President’s election sponsors.
He cautioned that nothing untoward must
happen to Metuh, adding that the APC’s desperation to decimate and
silence the opposition had dragged the Buhari-led government in the mud
of lawlessness.
“In saner climes, you don’t arrest
people for alleged fraud and start to look for evidence to prosecute
them. Rather, before you arrest anyone for fraud, anti-corruption
agencies must have established a prima facie case and arresting the
suspect will only be for his or her arraignment in court.
“However, what we are witnessing in
Nigeria today is a situation whereby the EFCC will arrest PDP leaders,
humiliate them by subjecting them to media trial, detain them for weeks
in the process of trying to force them to make statements during which
the commission will be looking for evidence.
“For instance, in the case of Metuh, we
are told that the EFCC is insisting that he must write statements and
one begins to wonder if it has now become mandatory for an accused to
write statements in law enforcement agent’s custody. Shouldn’t the EFCC
have simply charged Metuh to court based on its own evidence? Or is
Metuh’s statement the evidence the EFCC requires to prosecute him?
“The international community, especially
the United Nations, African Union, European Union, and others are put
on notice on this condemnable act of arresting and detaining opposition
leaders by agents of the Buhari-led government before fishing for
evidence.”
While challenging the President to
extend his anti-corruption crusade to those who sponsored his election,
Fayose added that “any anti-corruption effort that targets only members
of the opposition and those with axe to grind with the government of the
day can never succeed.
“If President Buhari does not wait for
any petition to move against PDP chieftains, asking people to come
forward with allegations of corruption against APC chieftains,
especially those who sponsored President Buhari’s election is clearly
hypocritical.”
Source: PUNCHNGR
