The Kogi State government has described the reported forfeiture of some of its properties by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as a “joke and a desperate concoction of confused unintelligent officials”.
The state government stated this in reaction to a press statement by the anti-graft agency, entitled “Court Orders Interim Forfeiture of 14 properties linked to Kogi State Government”.
This was as it also described the anti-graft agency as “Nigeria’s corruption headquarters under convicted chairman.”
The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Kingsley Femi Fanwo, in a release, dated 22 February, 2023, urged Nigerians to ignore the action of the EFCC.
The information commissioner stated that EFCC has made a ridicule of the fight against corruption across the country, as manifested in its face-off with Kogi State.
He accused the agency of having a “disgraceful fixation on the state in the pursuit of desperate political interests of its chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, and his godfathers.”
Fanwo also alleged that Bawa had shown, “like many honourable civil society organisations had pointed out, that his mandate at the EFCC was to bring down perceived enemies of those who planted him there at the expense of the nation’s integrity.”
He said the fact that the EFCC, by the press statement it issued, had showed clearly that uninformed minds had been picked to oversee the affairs of an agency as important as the agency.
He added that the “forfeiture joke is clearly a desperate concoction of confused, unintelligent officials.”
He said, for the avoidance of doubt, the Kogi State government has no property that can be forfeited to the Federal Government under any guise, adding that it was a campaign of calumny taken too far.
Fanwo noted that it was clear that the EFCC had declared a tactless open war against the Kogi State government.
The reason, he stated, was mainly because of Governor Yahaya Bello’s unflinching loyalty to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and not individuals.
The state Commissioner for Information further stressed that the governor was not one that could be cowed once he believed in a cause.
“Nigerians, and indeed, the international community are not as ignorant as the convicted Bawa and his sponsors.
“They know, with the different onslaughts against the Kogi State government, and its officials, that this is clear persecution by a desperate and power-drunk EFCC.
“In due course, Nigerians will confirm that the EFCC, under Bawa, is the capital of corruption amongst agencies in Nigeria.
“Unlike the convicted Bawa who has no regard for the courts, we want to state clearly here that, from what we have read in the media, not one we witnessed, this is a forfeiture proceeding and the order is an order of interim forfeiture.
“This order gives persons who allegedly own the properties rights to come to court to establish their ownership of the said properties. We will follow through with the courts.
“For now, it is clear the EFCC has declared a tactless open war against the Kogi State government, owing mainly to the governor’s unflinching loyalty to the APC and not individuals. We will prove our innocence in court. It is a matter of time,” Fanwo stated in the release.
The state government thanked Nigerians for standing by what is right and pointing out the mess that had become of the fight against corruption under an “emergency chairman”.
“On this note, we advise the public to ignore Bawa’s EFFC’s latest naked dance in the market square as the desperate last kicks of a dying horse,” it was stated in the statement.
