Ex-Edo Rep Charges EFCC to Reopen Atiku’s Case, Gives 14-Day Ultimatum

.Former VP to Tinubu: Unzip your pocket, let Nigerians see the files

Alex Enumah in Abuja

A former member of the House of Representatives, Ehiozuwa Johnson Agbonayinma, has challenged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to reopen and begin the prosecution of former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), on alleged corruption, or face legal action.

The former federal lawmaker who represented Egor/Ikpoba-Okha Federal Constituency, who predicated the call on a 2006 report of the anti-graft agency as well as that of the United States, claimed that the failure of the agency to prosecute the former VP has continued to cause the country huge embarrassment.

This was just as Atiku had dismissed the call and advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to allow the full disclosure of his record of alleged complicity in hard drugs dealings in which the President was said to have forfeited the sum of over $460,000 to the US government in 1993.

In a letter dated August 27, and addressed to the EFCC Executive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, the former Edo Rep and member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), recall that sometime between 2005 and 2006, the EFCC investigated and made a report on the allegation of “Grand corrupt practices involving Atiku who was then Vice President of Nigeria.”

The letter written by one of the lawmaker’s legal representatives, Hannibal Egbe Uwaifo, recalls that the EFCC, after the investigation, released a report titled, ‘The EFCC report on Vice-President Abubakar Atiku (Full report) dated September, 2006’.

According to him, the “report established serious allegations of corrupt practices involving sleaze, money laundering, and other serious financial crimes and other criminal acts against Alhaji Abubakar Atiku.

“That although the allegations were mind-boggling and the EFCC vowed to posecute Alhaji Abubakar Atiku as soon as he leaves office as Vice President (being covered by Constitutional immunity then), nothing has been done till date despite Public outcry both within and outside Nigeria,” the petition read in part.

The petitioner stated that the alleged “deliberate dereliction of duty” on the part of the EFCC is a very serious violation of the law establishing the agency and it’s also a direct affront on the people of Nigeria.

While commending the anti-graft agency in its effective prosecution of several corruption cases, Agbonayinma, submitted that the case of Atiku is a reference point that brings “embarrassment to Nigeria each time it is mentioned and tended to demonstrate the EFCC’s unwillingness to fight corruption in high places especially when it involves high profile individuals even when nobody is above the law.”

Meanwhile, the former legislator recalled that the United States of America Senate Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations, Homeland Security and Government Affairs also conducted their investigations on the same matter and allegedly established serious criminal allegations involving money laundering and other financial crimes against Atiku in a report dated February 4, 2010.

“With all due respect, Sir, our client believes that the present leadership at the EFCC has all it takes to bring Nigeria out of the high corruption index for which the country is presently infamous, and the prosecution of this case will represent one of the greatest milestone achievements of your anti-corruption body.

“In the circumstances, it is the demand of our client that the EFCC report and the report of the United States Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs report dated February 4, 2010, be reactivated as a basis for the immediate prosecution of former Vice President Abubakar Atiku to serve as a deterrent.

“Take notice that if, after 14 days of this letter, your commission, the EFCC, refuses or neglects to act, our further instruction is to take legal action against your commission,” the letter added.

Meanwhile, Atiku has challenged the president to “Unzip Your Pocket; let Nigerians see the files.”

According to Atiku, the renewed call for his prosecution on alleged corruption are mere diversions from the alleged misery the Tinubu administration has brought on Nigerians.

The former VP, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, explained that the “renewed recycling” of decades-old allegations against him is simply because his political opponents cannot survive scrutiny of their own economic record.

He said that the sudden return to allegations rooted in the political battles of the Obasanjo era was not a demonstration of strength but an admission that his opponents have run out of answers to hunger, collapsing purchasing power and the unbearable cost of living.

“At some point, desperation announces itself. When those defending this government can no longer explain why food, transportation, electricity, rent, education, insecurity and healthcare are increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary families, they rummage through twenty-year-old files looking for an escape route. This is panic dressed up as accountability.

“Let us not rewrite history. The Obasanjo administration did not protect me. At the height of our political disagreement, these matters travelled through the EFCC, an administrative panel, the National Assembly and the courts. The machinery of the state was fully deployed and the political hostility was public. Yet no court convicted me on these allegations. That is the record,” the statement read in part.

While querying what exactly has been discovered in 2026 that Nigeria did not hear 20 years ago, Atiku argued that a petition is not a conviction, and that an acknowledgement stamp is not evidence of guilt.

Stressing that repetition cannot magically become a judgment of court, he challenged anyone with credible evidence against him to come forward and test it before the law.

“I have issued that challenge before, and I repeat it today without hesitation.

“The contrast with Bola Tinubu is almost comic. While I am saying, ‘bring out your evidence,’ Tinubu actually went to an American court to intervene in a case seeking FBI and DEA records concerning him, citing privacy interests in records he argued should not be disclosed. It is like a man ordering his neighbour to empty his pockets while keeping his own firmly zipped. A man seeking protection for his own records has no business waving petitions at somebody else. My challenge is simple: let every lawful record be opened and every allegation tested. Let Nigerians see who welcomes scrutiny and who reaches for privacy arguments when the files concern him.

“But none of this political theatre will answer the question Nigerians are asking: why does their money buy less food, why does transportation swallow more of their wages, why are businesses struggling, and why are families working harder but living worse?

“The EFCC belongs to Nigeria, not to any government, party or candidate. It should investigate genuine wrongdoing wherever it finds it, but state institutions must never become emergency political weapons activated whenever those in power are losing the argument on governance.

“You cannot feed a hungry family with an EFCC petition. You cannot restore purchasing power with recycled allegations, and you cannot make life affordable by shouting Atiku whenever Nigerians demand answers.

“The old script did not stop me then, and it will not stop me now. In 2027, Nigerians will judge us by our records, the lives they are living and the future we offer them. Those afraid of that judgment may continue rummaging through the archives. We are facing the Nigerian people,” the statement added.