The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other anti-graft bodies have been accused of political witch-hunting in their anti-corruption war.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who made the accusation on Thursday said the organisations were dangerously sliding off course and mutating into a brazen political witch-hunt.
Atiku who was reacting to the arrest and detention of former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, said the agencies must avoid partisan contamination before they permanently lose the trust of Nigerians.
He said the EFCC was derailing far from its noble mandates upon which it was created., adding that instead of upholding justice, the agency has weaponised its powers to serve narrow political interests.
“The politicisation of corruption investigations has rendered the EFCC credibility suspect and rubbished the very ideals that inspired its establishment,” he said.
He accused the agency of selectively antagonizing opposition figures like Malami, adding that such targeted harassment shows that the EFCC was an overzealous appendage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) — one seemingly committed to imposing a one-party state on Nigeria.
He said he was shocked at the EFCC’s sudden hyperactivity the moment the African Democratic Congress (ADC) emerged as an opposition force, engaging in coordinated attacks the likes of Malami and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, while conveniently ignoring glaring corruption cases involving allies of the ruling party.
Atiku recalled how former governors who for long had been facing corruption cases were appointed ministers and ambassadors by President Bola Tinubu, but the EFCC turned blind eye
“We expected the EFCC to voice its objection to the appointment of former governors with unresolved corruption allegations. But partisan loyalty prevailed over integrity,” Atiku said.
He said if Malami had defected to the APC, the EFCC would have left him go, even if he had looted the entire CBN vault.
“Nigerians are watching in disbelief as an agency created to fight corruption willingly turns itself into a lapdog of the ruling APC—used to hound and destabilise credible opposition, while shielding political loyalists from accountability.
“The EFCC, now operating like a political Rottweiler, is deployed to intimidate and coerce politicians into joining the APC. And once they bow to pressure, their corruption cases mysteriously vanish,” he said.
According to him, serious nations don’t fight corruption by trading away the independence of its anti-graft institutions in exchange for partisan convenience.
He told the EFCC leadership to urgently stop political manipulation, adding that the stakes were too high for the agency to barter its integrity for the fleeting interests of any political party.
