From Jefferson Ibiwale, Benin
The Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, has threatened to drag the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to Court for abandoning its constitutional role and allegedly becoming political.
Oshiomhole said this on Tuesday during a town hall meeting held in Benin.
The governor said he was baffled when the EFCC chose to investigate the impeachment of former Deputy Speaker, Festus Ebea, when so many impeachments have occurred across the country, to which the commission has turned a blind eye.
“Our own EFCC is now Economic Financial and alleged Political Crimes. I am still unable to understand how EFCC assume responsibility to investigate impeachment of a Deputy Speaker. That is how far the EFCC has degenerated,” he said.
Oshiomhole said further, “When armed robbers are the ones looking for thieves then the story will change. We are watching how things will go. We have assembled a legal team to take EFCC to court to challenge their authority to become a political commission. We will fight them on our feet and never beg them on our kneels. We will show them respect but never shall we display an act of cowardice.”
The governor also hinted of plans to sue a former All Progressive Congress, APC, leader and national vice chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. Osagie Ize-Iyamu, over his alleged libelous statements after a supposed bomb attack on a building owned by him.
The governor said that he was still consulting to decide on the line of action yo take.
He said the self inflicted wound and arranged bombing was meant to divert attention from the criminal acts on the attack on Edo Legislators’ Quarters, stressing that the APC defectors want to attract sympathy to make people feel that they were suffering because of joining the PDP.
Oshiomole added that the orgy of violence in Edo reared its head when Ize-Iyamu and others decamped to the PDP.
He also said that he was reliably informed that Ize-Iyamu had boasted to the powers-that-be in Abuja that he would get more than half the members of the state House of Assembly to decamp to the PDP and that since he has been unable to do that, he had resorted to self-inflicted attacks to give the impression that he is a factor and force in the PDP and in Edo politics.
“The resort to the use of Improvised Explosive Device is clearly a desperate attempt to attract attention to themselves having lost out in the political equation in the PDP in Edo State to where they are now seeking refuge and where they are being treated as refugees,” the governor said.