The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of carrying out selective investigations in its effort to purge Nigeria of corruption.
The party made this allegation via a statement issued by Bolaji Abdullahi, the interim national publicity secretary of the ADC.
Abdullahi said the anti-graft agency has been behaving like a political hit squad for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Warning against this dangerous trend, the ADC said the move by the EFCC is eroding public trust in the institution and undermining the real fight against corruption.
Abdullahi said the EFCC’s recent pattern of action, re-opening closed cases, digging up files from years past, and targeting members of opposition parties is not the work of an impartial anti-graft body.
He said, “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.
“The EFCC was created to be 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.
“Meanwhile, we have observed 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 that have been hastily revived and dressed up as fresh evidence. This is selective prosecution, and selective prosecution is the death of justice,” Abdullahi said.
He also warned that the EFCC does not belong to the APC and should as such not be used as a tool in the hands of the ruling party.
“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,” he said.
Abdullahi called on Nigerians, civil society organisations, and the independent media to resist this dangerous slide into dictatorship and misuse of public institutions to achieve partisan objectives.