From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has advised the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), not to spare any one regardless of his or her social status in the fight against corruption.
Its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, who addressed newsmen on Friday in Abuja, specifically urged the anti graft agency to thoroughly investigate President Muhammadu Buhari’s aides including serving ministers.
According to Onwubiko, before the 2015 general elections, most aides to the President were poor and were unable to afford good houses, but alleged that since after the electoral victory of their boss, they have used their offices to acquire expensive cars and mansions across the country without accountability.
He further claimed that the situation had pushed those who had laboured for the present administration without been recognized to go into crimes like kidnapping and robbery just to eke out a living.
“The issue of insecurity in Nigeria is made worst by the unprecedented level of corruption amongst the members of the Federal Executive Council of this government and the stinking corruption by mostly the aides of the President.
“There are reports that most of them prior to the year 2015 before the coming of the government, were as wretched as Church rats.
“But few years down the line, there are reports that many of them have built immeasurable wealth and got huge assets to the amazement of some of the political thugs who were used to manipulate the electoral process and rig in the administration.
“It is said that some of these thugs who felt short changed by those who they helped to gain political power have abandoned them and are now amassing massive wealth whereas they who helped to perpetrate electoral fraud are dying in penury and absolute poverty.
“And so those amongst the armed thugs who cannot bear the disappointments with equanimity, then opted for violence and criminality which is the result of what we are witnessing today.
“So the EFCC is simply chasing shadows by asking bankers to declare their assets when this same EFCC failed to pin down the sponsors of terrorism and the kidnappers who keep huge ransom in the same banks that CBN controls.
“So the EFCC needs to go after the aides of the President and the ministers most of whom were even too poor to drive one good car and lived in rented houses with some reportedly selling recharge cards to before political fortune smiled on them in 2015/2019.
“The EFCC should conduct forensic investigations of how these persons who have been in government became stupendously wealthy contrary to their early wretched status which people around them can attest to, this is the roots of kidnappings.
“Also, how many of the ministers have their kids in public school? This is why one of them as we will read told us parents to protect our children because government can’t protect children,” he said.