Since the arrest of the PDP Spokesperson, Chief Olisah Metuh who has fared more as a noise maker in the political turf, over his alleged involvement in the looting of the $2.1bn meant for the procurement of arm and ammunition to combat insurgency, his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members have been making all sorts of statements to distract law enforcement agents.
The party’s National Legal Adviser, Mr. Victor Kwon, in Abuja on Saturday, said relying on a ‘holding charge’ duly derived from a Magistrates’ Court to detain Metuh was in total violation of the Constitution and extant corresponding rulings by several trial and appellate courts in the country. This is not true because the Magistrates’ Court that granted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) the holding charge to detain Olisa Metuh and obtain his confessional statement operated within the ambit of the law and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
He claimed that “Holding charge” implies ‘arrest before investigation’ instead of ‘investigation before arrest’ This, again is not correct because there are some suspected criminals as we have seen in the Dasukigate scandal perpetrated by PDP high and mighty that they all hide under the cover of law and constitutionality to financially castrate the country. Nigerians are loudly saying that this is unacceptable.
We recall how the arrowhead of the looting clan, Sambo Dasuki obtained a court injunction to travel overseas that his health was failing and that he will soon die if not allowed to travel overseas, just to escape the EFCC’s prying eyes. He was also not forthcoming with the truth. But for the insistence of the EFCC through the same court processes to hold him on and the confessions of a Director of finance who worked under him, Dasuki would not have opened up and would have escaped overseas.
Therefore, the current grilling of Olisa Metuh by the EFCC who is also a suspect of the same crime is not an aberration and abuse of judicial process as claimed by the PDP National Legal Adviser. Nigerians have been told how the PDP sat down in Abuja and shared their common wealth. Even the PDP Legal adviser is a suspect as it stands today. The EFCC should also investigate his accounts because there is nobody in the PDP national secretariat that should be insulated from the ongoing investigations and prosecution. Olisa Metuh should be properly grilled by the EFCC given the rot and confessions oozing out from the party.
Here was an Olisa Metuh who had accused the federal government of selectively prosecuting the war on corruption against members of the PDP not knowing that he had skeletons in his cupboard hence all the noise- making. Some huge sums of money have been traced to an account he is said to have interest. It is sad that people want to obstruct the course of justice. It is wrong for someone who is apprehended for stealing to accuse those who arrested him of bias if he is truly guilty of the offence, simply because someone else is suspected to be equally guilty of the same offence. This is what the PDP faithful and their apologists are saying and Nigerians are united in saying that they must be allowed to stew in their juice to serve as a deterrent to other parties, including the APC which controls power today.
I strongly believe that extraordinary times require serious response. While I’m in full support of the rule of law, I have no sympathy for the PDP looters. The anti-corruption campaign will definitely be lopsided given the fact that the PDP has presided over the last 16 years of democracy with dire consequences for the masses. They should please keep quiet after all, detention is better than nine grammes of lead in the skull which they would have gotten in China!
Even the claim of the PDP is not right because the EFCC have so far arrested several APC faithful and even northerners over the Dasuki gate including ex-governors and their sons ! But till date no group of APC or northern youths have been manipulated or brainwashed or given financial inducements to stage phony protest as we get in parts of the South. Former Governor of Kaduna State, Jafaru Isa of the APC is currently cooling his feet in the EFCC dragnet for benefiting from the looted funds. Alhaji Tanko Yakassai has said that he did not share the N53million he collected from Dasuki alone and he has a long list of PDP faithful and traditional rulers he shared the money with. Some allies of the President are also being held and grilled, so why the ado about the arrest and imminent prosecution of Olisa Metuh? Nigerians expect that all those named should be invited, one after the other by security operatives and any one found culpable should be thoroughly prosecuted.
This is why I find the so-called seven- day ultimatum given by a group, Campaign for Democracy (CD) to President Muhammadu Buhari to release Olisa Metuh and other suspects as laughable. The PDP has gone to hide under the Campaign for Democracy to be issuing threats and ultimatum to the federal government to release its dubious members that have looted the nation and sent hundreds of innocent Nigerians to their untimely graves while impoverishing millions others.
No individual or group should hide under any guise to threaten government or the peace of the nation. The law enforcement agencies must be on the red alert to deal decisively with any group who may have collected their own booty from the looters to campaign for their non-prosecution hiding under human rights and all sorts of claims. Government must not spare any saboteur in the fight against corruption and its quest to rebuild Nigeria destroyed these past 16 years by the PDP locusts.
President Muhammadu Buhari should intensify the arrest and prosecution of all treasury looters where ever they may be hiding. From the PDP Board of Trustees, PDP Secretariat through the Oil and Gas, the nation’s ports, and other MDAs. They should all be traced, tracked and repatriated.
It is heartwarming to note that President Muhammadu Buhari, has vowed that billions of dollars stolen from government coffers by past government officials would be recovered by his government. He has the total support of majority of Nigerians to proceed with his action plan.
President Buhari also said that his administration has received firm assurances of cooperation from the United States, United Kingdome and Switzerland as well as other countries on the recovery and repatriation of funds stolen from Nigeria by mindless politically exposed persons. This is a welcome development.
We must, therefore, be forward looking in the war against graft. President Muhammadu Buhari must reinforce the operations of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFCC) and the Nigerian Police and overhaul their operations as a matter of urgency. Government must also provide them with clear mandates and targets within this period for looted assets recovery. Government should fund the anti-corruption agencies and Nigerians as well as friends of Nigeria should join in the war by volunteering information to security operatives.
Mr. Dan Owegie is a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Edo State.
