Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has accused President Bola Tinubu of turning the anti-corruption fight into a full-blown witch-hunting of political opponents, especially those that worked with ex-Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and the late Muhammadu Buhari.
Atiku who made the allegations in a statement by his media team on X on Thursday, warned that with the way Tinubu is going, the “anti-corruption war is dangerously sliding off course and mutating into a brazen political witch-hunt.”
The former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also cautioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other anti-graft bodies to purge themselves of partisan contamination before they permanently lose the trust of Nigerians.
While reacting to the arrest and detention of former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), Atiku said the EFCC is “straying far from the noble principles upon which it was created.”
“The politicisation of corruption investigations has rendered the EFCC’s credibility suspect and rubbished the very ideals that inspired its establishment,” he stated.
“Instead of upholding justice, the agency is now weaponising its powers to serve narrow political agendas.
“President Tinubu is shamelessly selective in the pursuit of opposition figures like Malami,” the statement said, warning that such targeted harassment exposes the EFCC as an overzealous appendage of the ruling APC shows that he is seemingly committed to imposing a one-party state on Nigeria.
“The EFCC suddenly became hyperactive the moment the African Democratic Congress (ADC) emerged as an opposition force, launching coordinated attacks on key figures such as Malami and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, while conveniently ignoring glaring corruption cases involving allies of the ruling party.
“Former governors with long-standing corruption cases are handsomely rewarded with ministerial and Ambassadorial appointments by President Tinubu, yet the EFCC looked away without protest.
“If Malami defected to the APC, the EFCC would have left him untouched, even if he had looted the entire CBN vault.
“We expected the EFCC to voice its objection to the appointment of former governors with unresolved corruption allegations. But partisan loyalty prevailed over integrity.
“Nigerians are watching in disbelief as an agency created to fight corruption willingly turns itself into a lapdog of the ruling APC—used to hound and destabilise credible opposition, while shielding political loyalists from accountability.
“The EFCC, now operating like a political rottweiler, is deployed to intimidate and coerce politicians into joining the APC. And once they bow to pressure, their corruption cases mysteriously vanish.”
Atiku stressed that no serious nation combats corruption by trading away the independence of its anti-graft institutions in exchange for partisan convenience. He therefore urged the EFCC leadership to urgently detach itself from political manipulation, warning that the stakes are too high for the agency to barter its integrity for the fleeting interests of any political party.
