A legal practitioner and politician, KGB Oguakwa, has given a furious public thumbs down to the action of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in applying for the interim forfeiture of listed Properties allegedly linked to Nigeria’s longest serving Deputy President of the Senate, Professor Ike Ekweremadu.
Describing the Commission’s action as precipitate and cowardly, Oguakwa urged the condemnation of all men and women of goodwill against this primitively abhorrent action of, pummeling with further blows, a serving public servant who is currently battling for his personal liberty and the honour of his family, in a faraway foreign land. It is indeed an empty act of inglorious cowardice.
With regards to crime, it is well known and established that time does not run against the State so, this untidy surreptitious haste in seeking to forfeit the property of ailing Miss Sonia Ekweremadu’s doting father, at a time akin to having one hand tied behind his back, is ill advised, distasteful, even abhorrent.
Oguakwa in a telephone interview with JOURNALIST101 opined that “It is easy to cast slurs or tar across reputations from the safety of administrative offices or the anonymity of social media armchairs. However, remember that, apart from their legitimate, though huge, per quarter allowances and salaries, legislators should have no access to public funds. For instance, if a Senator decides to invest his savings in two properties every year, the alleged number of forty could well be within legitimate means for a 20-year tenure. In other words, since a Senator is not a Governor, President, Minister or a Member of the Executive arm, then proof of a crime will not be deduced merely because of an alleged number of property owned, no, there has to be,established beyond reasonable doubt, an interference with public finances, funds which a legislator has no access to anyway. Interim forfeiture is a low hanging fruit in this clime, EFCC will soon have to work up some real sweat when the actual legal brick bats commence.”
Stating that he (Oguakwa) has no skin in the game, “I probably haven’t even spoken to or met with Ike in over 8 years, but it is incumbent on all people of goodwill to rise in unison and condemn this unnecessary, nauseating and reprehensible action of a rampaging Institution which, by the way, recently appeared before the Senate to defend its annual budget and respond to parliamentary oversight queries regarding its operations”.
I know that this is not a popular barricade for today’s pseudo-elites to charge at, but remember that when General Sani Abacha went for MKO Abiola, we shrugged it off “ee no concern us”, it later “concerned us” when a wider dragnet was affixed to the infamous wings of the State Security (Detention of Certain Persons) Decree No. 2 of 1994 – a journey from which General Musa Yar’adua and a lot many others did not return.
Oguakwa described the embattled Senator as “one of the most outstanding parliamentarians Nigeria has ever produced”. Saying that, “like him or not, Ekweremadu is not a piece of remainder meat which any passing stray dog should be allowed to snap up, chew and swallow. No.”
He urged “ the EFCC in the strongest possible terms to withdraw their presently obnoxious Application for Forfeiture. They should keep their powder dry and, at some future time, dance back into the ring through the front door when Ekweremadu’s present offshore travails are over. Then they can match up Mano-a-Mano.
That is the path of honour. Our Constitution still has a presumption of innocence, abi?
Onwezikwalu ndi noo here? (is there nobody here?), Oguakwa rhetorically queried.
The issue is not whether he should or should not have a day in EFCC’s court, no. It is rather that, it is “un-African” to ignore taking “judicial notice” of this family’s present struggles in England, but rather initiate a process back home which can unfairly, potentially cripple a man whose voice has been temporarily silenced.
Or, should my question to us all really not be: Who, abeg who, who wants Ekweremadu, metaphorically, “dead”?
“God forbid!
“This is the Contrary View.
“It is not well.”
Speaking on the sideline about the soon to debut growth and development issues column under his new Citizen’s Activism Project which is captioned “ The Contrary View”, Oguakwa elucidated that :
“In the past, it has been my personal policy not to criticize my friends in public. I am scathing with them though, in private, with the result that they either minimize access or ensure that audience with them is never private. They have not always succeeded. I have struggled with the often irksome restraints of this inexplicably chosen private path. Going forward, w.e.f 29/5/23, under my byline: @kgboguakwa’s “THE CONTRARY VIEW”, good will be praised/celebrated and less than good will be stridently, constructively and publicly called out. I therefore hasten to hereby apologize in advance to my friends holding public office. Please do the right things always. May it be well with Nigeria.
God Above All!”
That is Nigeria for you. You hear of Abacha’s loot because he is dead. So also would you hear of Ekweremadu’s because of his present predicament. What of those who are around to bribe theit their ways through?