Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, governor of Ondo State and chairman of the People’s Democratic Party’s Governors Forum has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, to order and immediately intervene to rescue the country from what he described as the current gross abuse of the constitution.
Reacting to the freezing of the Ekiti State governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose’s account by the EFCC, Mimiko, in a statement made available to newsmen in Akure on Tuesday, June 21, 2016 said the action of the EFCC has portrayed Nigeria as one in crisis .
Registering the danger in the decision of the EFCC to freeze Fayose’s account, Mimiko said the EFCC cannot interfere with the account of a sitting governor, adding that the action will not “find comfort with the position of Section 308 of the Nigerian Constitution”.
counterpart, Ayodele Fayose | Ondo TV
According to Dr. Mimiko, if the intention is to suggest any criminal infraction or fraud against the governor, the agency should have sheathe its sword until Governor Fayose vacates office.
“What has happened is a blatant and violent infraction on the provision of the constitution and our democracy,” Mimiko said. “It’s an attempt to subvert the constitution and it is fascist. The intention is to achieve a penal sanction without going through the due criminal procedure and criminal proceedings”
Governor Mimiko said the essence of Section 308 of the constitution of the country is to save governors in the country from distractions, submitting that “what they have done now is to distract the governor of Ekiti and this is not good for our democracy.”
Submitting that immunity is part of the constitution “which must be respected whether anybody likes it or not” the PDP Governor’s Forum chairman further mentioned that the EFCC’s action violates Section 96 of the 1999 constitution as amended which confer on every individual right of fair hearing.
He warned that the country is beginning to manifest the signs of totalitarianism adding that the account of any individual could only be frozen after a court of competent jurisdiction as so ruled or an interim order by a court of competent jurisdiction is granted to the anti graft agency.
