Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of detaining former Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal due to his membership in the opposition coalition.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Abubakar alleged that the Bola Tinubu administration is weaponizing the anti-graft agency to intimidate opposition figures into defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Tambuwal, who currently represents Sokoto South in the Senate, was questioned by the EFCC on Monday over allegations of withdrawing N189 billion in cash, violating the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022. However, Abubakar dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
“The only reason the EFCC has detained the former governor of Sokoto State, Senator Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, is that he is a member of the opposition coalition,” Abubakar stated. “It is a continuation of the Tinubu-led administration’s agenda to harass, intimidate, and decimate the opposition.”
The former vice-president, who played a key role in establishing the EFCC during his tenure, criticized what he described as the agency’s politicization under the current administration.
“The reality unfolding before us today is that the Tinubu administration, as with other aspects, has objectified the fight against corruption as a political tool to coerce opposition leaders into the ruling party,” he said. “We are living witnesses to a growing trend where the state and its operators have assumed the role of a bully by making corruption and the fight against it a political agenda.”
Abubakar lamented that the EFCC’s actions contradict its original mandate, stating, “Certainly, that is not the objective for which I worked hard during our administration when we created the EFCC.” He further alleged that opposition figures are being targeted with “phantom corruption allegations,” only to have their cases dropped once they defect to the APC.
“It is as though today anyone who associates with the opposition is a target for phantom corruption allegations and, as soon as they are coerced into President Bola Tinubu’s political agenda, their ‘sins’ are forgiven,” he said. “That is definitely not how to build institutions, that is certainly not how to fight the monster of corruption. Indeed, such tendencies create the conditions in which corruption can thrive.”
The former presidential candidate also claimed that the EFCC has been used to pressure opposition governors into joining the ruling party, warning that such tactics threaten Nigeria’s democracy.
“We have seen how the EFCC has been used to compel opposition state governors to join the ruling party, and the tea party is not about to end anytime soon,” he said.
Abubakar called on civil society organizations and the international community to condemn what he described as the misuse of anti-corruption agencies for political persecution. He vowed that the opposition would resist any attempts to impose a one-party state through coercion.