The Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee (EFCC) has cleared all doubts within the case of Alhaji Yayaha Bello, former governor of Kogi state. It’s a case of persecution, actually not prosecution. The occasion of September 18, 2024 has lastly eliminated the final veil that masked the mischief of Ola Olukoyede, the Chairman of the EFCC in his campaign of calumny towards a person he has a number of instances pronounced responsible as charged when he’s not a court docket of legislation.
EFCC and Bello had been engaged in a ding-dong over allegations of fraud towards the previous Kogi governor. On this rely, the anti-graft company declared Bello needed after a number of failed makes an attempt to arrest him gestapo-style within the full glare of the media which the EFCC invited to witness the arrest. It bears restating that the EFCC had been rabidly crass in its makes an attempt to prosecute Bello, who it have to be confused, not enjoys any type of immunity from prosecution.
Bello and his attorneys know this and have by no means hidden their want to make court docket look to reply to the fees towards the previous governor.
On many counts, Bello had approached the courts to implement his elementary human rights having thought of the vicious and largely illegal method the EFCC had been hounding him. Not a number of individuals had questioned if the case of Bello vs the EFCC was only a matter of alleged fraud or one thing else. The EFCC open resort to impunity simply to arrest Bello leaves a lot to the creativeness. And whether or not EFCC likes it or not, the Bello matter, like many prior to now, has uncovered the soiled underbelly of the anti-graft company.
Two key moments within the Bello prosecution (persecution, as some argue, rightly so) outline the EFCC and its Chairman, Olukoyede, as entities on a vendetta, reasonably than crusaders towards graft. On Tuesday, April 23, 2024, Olukoyede within the full glare of the media and numerous world audiences handed a verdict of ‘responsible’ on Yahaya Bello.
It was a crude enactment of the Latin phrase, ‘Nemo judex in causa sua’ which roughly interprets as: “No man can decide his personal trigger; or be a decide in his personal trigger.”
At a media briefing wherein senior editors have been current, Olukoyede waxed emotional as he convicted Bello earlier than the media and earlier than the world. The EFCC Chair didn’t allege that Bello embezzled funds from Kogi treasury, he stated pointedly that the previous governor stole from a state as poor as Kogi. With a microphone and proper earlier than the media, Olukoyede gave a vivid account of how the previous governor withdrew cash from the state coffers to pay for his youngsters’s college charges upfront.
That is one thing an EFCC witness needs to be telling the court docket, not EFCC Chairman telling the media. He even threatened to resign if Bello was not prosecuted to the top. He was emotional as he was recklessly showy in his theatrics to tar Bello, nonetheless a suspect till pronounced responsible by a court docket of legislation, within the darkest color of ignominy.
There’s a big distinction between legislation and emotion.
Circumstances are decided on documentary proof, not on the whims of feelings or creativeness. Debating the small print of a Cost Sheet within the media by the prosecutor is just not solely sub-judice but in addition an affront on the defendant’s constitutional proper to honest listening to.
Why is EFCC partaking in pointless drama if it has established a prima facie case towards Bello? And why ought to the Chairman of the fee be the particular person huffing and puffing with a microphone earlier than the media in a matter that’s already energetic in court docket? Is there a hidden agenda within the Bello case that Olukoyede is in a rush to execute by whim, and never by way of the due strategy of the court docket of legislation?
And having failed on a number of counts to arrest Bello gestapo-style with ‘organized’ media protection, EFCC declared him ‘Needed’ and even enlisted InterPol to assist his arrest. However whereas this technique was nonetheless on, Bello confirmed up at EFCC workplace in Abuja. His exhibiting up at EFCC workplace on September 18 put a misinform the EFCC declare that he was a fugitive from the legislation. However right here is the curious side of the saga which underscores claims that EFCC has switched from prosecution to persecution and cruel victimisation within the Bello case.
Bello had stayed away from EFCC due to a court docket order restraining the fee from arresting and harassing him. However as quickly because the order was vacated, the identical Bello appeared within the workplace of EFCC desiring to be interrogated by operatives of the fee if solely to show that he’s not a fugitive from the legislation. Unusually, EFCC officers requested the person they declared ‘needed’ to go house with out taking him in and interrogating him.
To declare a person needed means you might be searching for him and such a person needs to be arrested anyplace he’s seen. This similar Bello introduced himself to you to make your job simpler, however you let him go with out interrogation, on the very least. The excuse by EFCC was that they might not ‘take him in’ as a result of he got here with a sitting governor. How clever is that? However that very same day, at nightfall, the identical EFCC operatives invading the lodge of the sitting governor to arrest the identical Bello. At that time, EFCC didn’t contemplate that if Bello have been in that lodge, the identical immunity that lined him whereas he made look at your workplace nonetheless subsists for him contained in the lodge the place a sitting governor lives.
To make the case much more curious, you got here at evening and succeeded in enacting one other comical film, a dramatic development that now defines your operations. EFCC ought to spare the nation this drama. Olukoyede, a lawyer, ought to know that preventing corruption that brazenly subverts court docket orders and violates the elemental human rights of ‘suspects’ is in itself an act of corruption.
Nigerians need a corruption-free society. They want that each one anti-crime businesses together with the EFCC needs to be above board. However below Olukoyede, there was allegation of sleaze and bribery towards operatives of the fee. This could fear Olukoyede, {that a} fee he heads, by no means thoughts the controversy that heralded his appointment, is enmeshed in allegations of bribery. Whereas not making any case for Bello, Olukoyede needs to be informed that Nigerians should not fooled by his inaction and ambivalence on circumstances of corruption involving former governors who are actually holding high positions within the govt and legislature. Their information are gathering mud in EFCC workplace unattended to. Is it a case of selective amnesia, selective prosecution or selective justice?
This present of apparent bias towards Bello by Olukoyede strengthens insinuations in some quarters that Bello may not get honest listening to on this matter. Justice is in danger when bias is at work. I’m certain that even President Bola Tinubu could be embarrassed by the pointless drama being enacted by the EFCC. Olukoyede ought to cease leaping the gun and comply with the due strategy of the legislation.
*Nwokike, a coverage analyst, writes from Abuja
