Groups Tackle EFCC over Saraki

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Youths Vanguard of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) has warned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to desist from media trial and harassing the former President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki.

Also, a Northern Youths Transparency Vanguard (NYTV) group has flayed the arrest of Saraki, which they described as an attempt to divert attention to the corruption charges against a deputy commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari.

The group further accused the EFCC of media trial against the former senate president.

The PDP youths under the aegis of South-south Youth Vanguard, also cautioned the anti-graft agency to beam its anti-corruption search light on the appropriate quarters and stop chasing shadows.

The group was of the view that the EFCC planned to use Saraki’s case, which has already been dispensed with by competent courts, to cover the indictment against the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abba Kyari, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America.

Recall that Kyari has been linked with serial internet fraudster, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, alias Hushpuppi, a development that is already in the public space.

The PDP’s youths, in a statement by its National Chairman, Mr. James Efe Akpofure, counseled the anti-graft agency to go after those reaping and looting the nation, whose stock-in-trades were not hidden from the public.

They also counseled the EFCC to work for the people and stop being used by the government in power to hunt perceived enemies.

“The earlier the EFCC knows that it was established to fight corruption in the interest of the public the better. It should stop doing the bidding of government in power. By working for the interest of the people, comity of nations will see us as toeing the right part to meet international best practices,” the youth vanguard said.

Meanwhile, in a statement that was signed by the President of NYTV, Mr. Inuwa Sabo, the group said the EFCC and the interest it represents is becoming uncomfortable with Saraki’s rising presidential prospects and, therefore, have found a common ground with the EFCC hatchet men to distract from the grave implications of a decorated police man fraternising with a known fraudster leading to his indictment.

The group, therefore, called on the EFFC to tell Nigerians what Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abba Kyari, had with convicted internet scammer popularly called Hushpuppi, as to warrant the American Spy Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, to secure a Court warrant for the arrest of the Nigerian super cop and not distract people with Saraki’s name.

Sabo said that it would be curious and insulting for the EFCC and its hatchet men to circulate a statement purporting that Saraki has been arrested over renewed allegations of corruption, when a topical and humongous case of corruption of international magnitude is hanging over the head of Kyari.

He said: “It is no news to Nigerians that the EFCC have continuously investigated allegations of corruption and raised trump charges against the former Senate President, which when tested in the Courts have always fallen flat. Still, the EFCC and their paymasters and cyber peddlers keep fanning the flames of hyperbole and ingenious propaganda with Saraki’s name under of renewed allegations of corruption”.

The statement said that Nigerians are wiser and that is why a Saraki’s Presidency would usher in a new era for Nigerians who will look back at this era as a passing phase.

“If fighting corruption means much to the EFCC, they should address the concerns of Nigerians about the red-hot Abba Kyari relationship with the convicted scammer.”