- By Femi Alabi
The Kogi State Government has described the trend and torrent of witch-hunt by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, striving to force corruption claims on its government and officials as worrisome.
The Commissioner for Information and Communications, Kingsley Fanwo in a press release chided EFCC on the claim that it discovered a non-existent fund in an alleged Fixed Deposit account.
He held that the Commission shot itself in the foot with a badly scripted skit of conniving with the now discredited Emefiele-led Central Bank to claim the money was returned to the Central Bank.
Fanwo stated that action is the hight of witch-hunt and unprovoked attack on the integrity of the Government and People of Kogi State.
In his words, “The desperation of the EFCC to hastily and for glaring political reasons, hound the immediate past Governor on their corruption list is unfortunate and speaks volume on how we reward altruistic leadership in our nation.
“It is clear that Kogi’s funds are not missing and that the EFCC is trying so hard to find what is not missing. We therefore call on the EFCC to desist from mentioning the name of Kogi State in
its ongoing persecution, orchestrated by some political actors in and around the Presidency bent on destroying the image of Alh. Yahaya Bello and Kogi State.
“We believe that this ignoble agenda is unknown to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who trusted those people with power with the hope that they will use it judiciously for the greatness of our nation. Unfortunately, they have decided to use the privileges given to them a s tools for political vendetta.”.
He described the amended charges in which the name of the former Governor was mentioned as false, frivolous, fictitious and far from the truth.
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Fanwo noted that the charges are cooked-up to signpost EFCC’s desperation to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
“The intention was to sensationalize the whole scenario and promote a media war against the former Governor and other officials of Government.
“We have seen how low EFCC and its paymasters can go in order to pander to the political agenda of those afraid of the rising profile of Alh. Yahaya Bello.
“The Kogi State Government wishes to call on Mr President to order a special probe into what is happening in Kogi State before the EFCC is pushed into being used as a hired gun by political hawks who are acting a selfish and overambitious script.”.
He stressed that Kogi Government will continue to support the anti-corruption crusade of the Federal Government, adding that such crusade should be based on the rule of law, purity of conscience, devoid of political scheming.
“Our administration will continue to act in a way that Kogites will be respected wherever they go and for us to retain the
respect of our international development partners who have persistently commended our anti-corruption credentials.”