The EFCC issued a statement signed by Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, its National President, in reaction to reports that the organisation had addressed a letter to the British court where the politician was on trial.
Ohanaeze stated its earlier belief that there is more to Senator Ekweremadu's London ordeal than first appears to have been confirmed following the revelation made in court on Thursday by the lawmaker's attorney, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), that the EFCC prepared a letter with which the London Metropolitan Police cancelled the Senator's bail in the ongoing organ harvest trial.
The group was especially enraged by the EFCC's pursuit of Ekweremadu, a politician with little control over public funds, as opposed to petitions against former executive officeholders with well-known corruption charges.
All of this was explained in a statement issued on Sunday by Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, president of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide.
As stated by Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth in a statement issued in November 2022, the anti-graft agency was working hand in hand with foreign and local interests to detain and nail the lawmaker at all costs. This assertion was confirmed by the court's revelation that the EFCC did in fact arm the London Metropolitan Police with the letter with which it scuttled Chief Ike Ekweremadu's bail.
“We disagree with the EFCC that the said letter was a mere routine to a counterpart government agency and that the asset forfeiture proceedings instituted against Ekweremadu only after exchanges of communication with the London Police and while in detention was a mere coincidence.
“Even if no legally stipulated timeframe for the EFCC to initiate forfeiture proceedings or criminal charges against a suspect as claimed by the agency, is it patriotic, professional, ethical, and auspicious for the anti-graft agency to go after a man they claim to have been investigating since 2008 only when he was detained in London?
“Would the London Metropolitan Police arm the EFCC with a letter to sabotage the bail application of a British citizen, let alone a Member of Parliament, in a Nigerian court, pledge its readiness to go to court against that citizen in London while in Nigerian detention, and go ahead to do exactly that?
“Is it honourable on the path of the EFCC to have withheld from the Federal High Court the fact that it had investigated Ekweremadu for well over a decade and that the lawmaker is in detention in a foreign land and would not be available to defend himself, knowing that the honourable court would be guided by such information in making a just decision on whether or not it should indeed grant the interim assets forfeiture which it ordered against the lawmaker which in October?”
They called it shameful that the EFCC is interfering maliciously in Ekweremadu’s overseas trial in a matter that has nothing to do with drugs when developed democracies like the UK and USA are known to go into diplomatic overdrive to secure respite and freedom of their citizens facing drug-related and more heinous charges in foreign lands.
“From Nuhu Ribadu to Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Lamorde, Ibrahim Magu, and now Abdulrasheed Bawa, the chairmanship of the EFCC has permanently resided in one part of the country since its inception, thereby resulting in a clear pattern of persecution, humiliation, and assets stripping of southern people and businesses by the agency.
“Besides, it is most unfortunate that the EFCC has overlooked its Augean stable, most recently relating to the humongous allegations of corruption against its last Chairman as well as other issues of alleged mismanagement of recovered or seized assets but only to hunt after a distinguished Nigerian lawmaker in detention and facing trial in a foreign land,” it stated.