…Says, the agency should not turn itself to an arm of APC
The African Democratic Congress (ADC), on Monday, August 11, 2025, castigated the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for turning itself into a political hit squad for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The coalition ADC specifically said that the selective targeting of opposition politicians by the EFCC is not only unjust, unfair but dangerously undermining the fight against corruption and public trust in the anti-graft agency.
These were contained in a statement by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity Secretary of the ADC in which he noted that EFCC’s recent antics — reopening old, closed cases, digging up dusty files, and targeting opposition figures — look less like justice and more like political persecution.
The ADC particularly took a critical look at the several senior members of the opposition Coalition that have recently received summons by the EFCC, stressing that the moves by the EFCC are clearly politically motivated.
In the words of Abdullahi; “These are not fresh cases arising from new evidence, but new files opened in reaction to emergent political affiliations to intimidate key opposition figures.
“The EFCC was created to be a fearless defender of the Nigerian people’s trust, applying the law evenly to all, friend or foe, ruling party or opposition. Today, that vision appears to have been compromised.
“The Commission now operates like a department of the APC, deployed to fight government critics and opposition figures thereby achieving what the government cannot achieve through public debate,” he stated.
The ADC also said that it has observed how investigations into ruling party allies quietly fade away while opposition figures are dragged before the court of public opinion with sometimes decade-old allegations that have been hastily revived and dressed up as fresh evidence.
It further said; “This is selective persecution, and selective prosecution is the death of justice. It does appear that in today’s Nigeria, one’s guilt or innocence depends on one’s party membership, not evidence.
“For example, since a certain former governor defected to the APC with his state’s entire political machinery, the EFCC’s investigations into his administration have vanished from public view. Not a question has been asked. Not a document leaked. Not a single update.
“Yet the same EFCC still somehow find means to reopen old cases against opposition leaders and pursue the stale allegations against them.
“It does not augur well for the EFCC if people think that all you need to point the accusing hands of the Commission in your direction is to stand opposed to the ruling party and all that it takes for protection is to align with the government. “Unfortunately, this is the widely established perception in Nigeria today, which the Commission by its recent actions, including the ongoing surreptitious harassment of opposition leaders, has given credence to,” it stressed.
The ADC therefore called on all Nigerians, civil society organisations, and the independent media to resist the dangerous slide into dictatorship and misuse of public institutions to achieve partisan objectives.
It declared that the EFCC does not belong to the APC, but to the Nigerian people and funded by taxpayers, not the ruling party.
