Indications are rife that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will look into activities of some outgoing governors whose tenure expires on May 29.
This information came to the fire yesterday when it was learnt that the EFCC has written to invite some of them just as the anti-corruption organization will also be directing its searchlight on the commissioners who served in the affected administrations.
Reacting to this development, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state confirmed the receipt of the agency’s letter and expressed his displeasure at what he called “the consistent castigation of governors by the anti-graft agency”.
Matawale also demanded to know the reason for streamlining the investigation to governors and why the EFCC has not extended the same probe to public servants at the federal level.
The governor decried a statement credited to EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, that he has sent invitations to outgoing governors and commissioners in a bid to begin investigation into alleged corruption and abuse of office perpetrated by them while in office.
Matawalle, who said that the investigation should be wholistic and not selective, maintained that “the recent invitations and pronouncement by the EFCC chair is imbalance, incomplete, hypocritical and unnecessarily skewed.”
Rejecting the selective probe, the governor said “in a bid to help the obvious knowledge-gap and inertia exhibited by the EFCC Chair, the probe should be all-embracing and cover all officers.”
He added: “I demand that the EFCC chair extend similar invitations to officers of the Presidency and members of the Federal Executive Council, which is the highest tier of government in the country.”
Meanwhile, the federal government has reacted to governor Matawale’s demand for a blanket probe. “The governor has the right to make suggestions. That is his own opinion,” Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said.
In a related development, Matawalle has said that before any probe by the EFCC can be meaningful, the EFCC Chairman should step aside.
He said: “To engender a broad based investigation and an enlargement of the fight against corruption, I will also demand that Abdulrasheed Bawa excuse himself and surrender himself for investigation.
“Importantly, he needs to come clean with Nigerians on the way and manner he has prosecuted the anti-corruption fight.
“He needs to explain among others how seized assets by the EFCC are being sold without adherence to due process.
“He should explain, for instance, how he has assumed the role of the plaintiff, prosecutor and jury and how he has executed his brand of plea bargaining with suspected criminals and saboteurs of the Nigerian economy and agenda who instead of being put on trial, are walking freely all over Nigeria.”
Matawalle averred that: “It is when the EFCC Chair does this and becomes open, non-selective and all-embracing with his invitation, will we take him serious.
“It is only then will serious-minded officers who have served the people selflessly and meritoriously, and are not opposed to an examination of their books, and indeed Nigerians generally take him seriously.
“Without this, it is just a case of another person in government who has some explaining to do himself over allegations of corruption, high-handedness and abuse of office now asking others to account, by so doing, merely giving Nigerians a comic relief from the present challenging times they are experiencing.”
