Group seeks removal of immunity clause, laments double standard in criminal cases

Activist urges EFCC to refrain from media trial of Bello

GANI Fawehinmi Memorial Organisation ( GAFAMORG), yesterday, demanded the abrogation of the immunity clause in the country’s constitution.

The demand, the group said, followed the recent rigmarole and public deception between the former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC) over the former’s criminal trial.

Describing Nigeria’s albatross as executive pen robbery by a ruinous self- serving ruling class, the Chairman of the Governing Council of GAFAMORG, Agunbiade Tunde, stated that Gani Fawehinmi would be saddened in his grave by the state of education, food, water, job, housing, economy and security in the country, today. According to him, the utter contradiction of abundance and poverty foisted on Nigerians is callous.

He said: “Our rulers masquerading as leaders swim in abundance and engage in ostentatious living while the citizens wallow in abject poverty of unimaginable magnitude, as our commonwealth is daily plundered. “Gani Fawehinmi’s words on marble posited that ‘ The issue of corruption is fundamental in the governance of any nation. It affects the economy in its entirety. No country can effectively and properly develop if corruption holds sway, as all aspects of human existence will be negatively affected where the state encourages corruption”.

MEANWHILE, legal activist, Wilfred Molokun, has urged the EFCC to refrain from the media trial of Bello, in an attempt to arraign him.

According to him, it is absurd for an agency charged with the enforcement of all economic and financial crimes laws to throw overboard the rule of law in its desperation to humiliate a former governor.

Molokun made the call while fielding questions on the judgment Justice Isa Abdullahi of Kogi High Court delivered on April 17, 2024, which restrained the EFCC “from continuing to harass, threaten to arrest or detain” Bello based on the criminal charges now pending before the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Asserting that decorum and decency should be the order of the day, he stressed that EFCC should allow the judge of the Federal High Court, who oversees the matter, to rule on Bello’s application seeking to vacate the warrant of arrest, essentially as the court has now been adequately addressed by both parties on the issues.