As the highly publicized war on corruption progresses, President Muhammadu Buhari has empowered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to probe president Goodluck Jonathan.
The Presidency said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is free to investigate former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, who stated this in Abuja on Friday, also explained that there was no secret pact between President Buhari and Jonathan to exclude the ex-President from the list of corrupt people to be probed by this administration.
There have been calls by prominent Nigerians, including the Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, that Buhari should authorise the EFCC to probe and prosecute Jonathan.
Ndume had said, “Nobody is supposed to be above the law. If Jonathan is a culprit, he should face the law. If there is evidence that the former President should face the law, then, he should. After all, he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
According to Punch, Adesina revealed that the Presidency had given the anti-corruption body a free hand to investigate and try anybody involved in corrupt practices. He said that the President was not interested in teleguiding the anti-graft agency.
Adesina was asked if the EFCC would need the permission of the President before probing Jonathan. He was also asked to react to an allegation that Buhari had been reluctant to grant permission to the EFCC to investigate Jonathan.
In his response, Adesina said, “The President does not teleguide the EFCC in any way.”
Also, the Presidency on Friday said that Buhari did not sign any pact with former President Goodluck Jonathan or any past President, exempting them from being probed.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Punch.
Shehu said that being an open person, Buhari would never go into a secret pact with anybody, especially concerning his administration’s ongoing anti-graft war.
He said that anything could be expected in the ongoing anti-graft war, which he described as “open-ended”.
The presidential spokesman said, “There is no secret pact between President Buhari and any past President.
“If you know or understand him, President Buhari is not the kind of person who will go into secret agreements. He is open about everything he does.
“The war against corruption is open-ended. Nobody knows how it will end.”
Shehu, however, ruled out the possibility that Buhari might have been on a witch hunt in his fight against graft.
He said government’s position is that former government officials can return their loots in order to escape investigation and trial.
He also declared that the current administration’s war against corruption knows neither friend nor foe.
The EFCC had been under pressure to summon the former president over investigations into the $2.1bn arms probe. It was learnt that the commission had already compiled statements by suspects arrested over the arms probe and some of them required the invitation of the former president to make clarifications.
It was gathered that the Jonathan issue had been discussed at a high level of the Buhari administration and the signal or the body language the commission was getting from the government was that investigations should not be extended to the former President for now.
But the spokesperson for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said he could not confirm if Jonathan would be arrested or not.
Uwujaren said it was not the habit of the commission to announce when it would arrest anybody and that its investigations were usually discreet.
The EFCC spokesman said, “I can’t speak on that (Jonathan’s arrest). We don’t announce ahead of time if people are to be arrested.”
When asked if it was true that the EFCC had been instructed not to investigate Jonathan, Uwujaren said, “I don’t respond to speculations. Who will give us that kind of instruction? Is there someone that gives us instructions on which case to investigate or not?”
However, the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), said in theory, the EFCC did not need the approval or permission of the President to arrest anyone since the commission had been empowered by an Act.
But, he said in practice, the anti-graft agency would need to inform the President.
He said it would be necessary because of the sensitivity of such an arrest, adding that Nigeria’s democracy had never witnessed the arrest of a former President before.
Sagay said, “The law is clear. There is no such limitation on the part of the EFCC under the EFCC Act. If anyone has committed any offence relating to economic and financial crimes, such a person can be investigated and if there is evidence, the person can be prosecuted. The law is clear that no presidential permission is needed.
“But we are talking of a former head of state here and I think it will be extremely imprudent of the EFCC to just go and knock on his door and detain him. Definitely, it is my personal view that there is a protocol. My personal view is that the EFCC will need clearance from the President himself if the commission needs to arrest a former President.”
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