APC Slams The Presidency Over EFCC's Arrest of Kano Speaker, Others

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the arrest of the

Speaker, Clerk and nine members of the Kano State Legislature by the EFCC

as an undisguised case of political vendetta by a hurting presidency,

whose target is actually the State Governor.
In a statement in Lagos, Tuesday, by its Interim National Publicity

Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said
since the arrest of the lawmakers for carrying out their statutory duty of

approving a budget cannot be justified by any law,
it is clear to all discerning Nigerians that the only motive can only be

to harass and intimidate the lawmakers of a state that

recently escaped from the hell-hole called the PDP to join the APC.

It said the politically-motivated arrest also undoubtedly marked the

beginning of the long-expected series of persecution by a desperate

Federal Government, against APC states, in particular those states that

have recently ducked from the cascading PDP plague.

APC therefore called for the immediate release of the legislators by the

malleable EFCC, which has suddenly found enough resources from its

dried-up coffers to go after innocent men, when the same commission has

looked the other away while monumental corruption stalked the land,

whether it is the Oduahgate, the fuel subsidy scam or the SURE-P heist,

just to list a few.
”Nowhere in the world are lawmakers arrested for carrying out their

constitutional-mandated role of approving a budget. The world must be

having a good laugh at the lack of ingenuity by a government that is so

eager to extract a pound of flesh from supposed political enemies that it

would orchestrate arrests for offences unknown to law.

”The allegation that Gov. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso's supplementary budget was

meant to cover-up a dubious transaction due to a budget review request to

the State Assembly to the value of 28 billion Naira, from the initial

budget of 24 billion Naira, is as spurious as it is laughable, just as the

EFCC's claim that the arrest followed a petition by a stakeholder in the

state is questionable.
”The tragedy of the unfolding scenario, which will surely extend to other

APC states in the days ahead, is that a democratically-elected government

is toeing the well-worn vindictive path of a military dictatorship by

harassing and intimidating supposed opponents and stifling the opposition.

The Gestapo-style siege on the Kano House of Assembly is a throwback to

what Nigerians thought was a bygone era of military dictatorship. We hate

to say it, but we have been proven right in our warning in October 2013

that the President was using Rivers State to test-run fascism. Now, he

seems ready to roll,” the party said.
It vowed to use all constitutional means to resist any attempt to use the

institutions of state against the opposition; to use trumped-up charges to

victimize perceived political opponents, and to curtail the citizens'

constitutionally-sanctioned right of free association

”From the moment Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was dragged before the Code of

Conduct Tribunal over a case that lacked merit in every sense to the

arrest of Sule Lamido's sons and the grounding of Gov. Chibuike Amaechi's

plane, the Jonathan Administration has not relented in its search for any

crude measure to badger the opposition and perceived opponents to

submission.
”But if history is any guide, no force is good enough to stop an idea

whose time has come and, for us at the APC, the cheap shots from a

diminished presidency and the evil machinations of a crumbling behemoth

called the PDP can only serve to strengthen our resolve to rescue Nigeria

from the clutches of both entities, which are steeped in medieval tactics

of coercion, even as governance has suffered a crushing neglect,” APC

said.