CPPM Condemns Yahaya Bello’s Show of Shame, Commends EFCC For Staying Focused on Mandate… Calls on Nigerians to Assist Anti Corruption Agency in arresting wanted Fmr. Gov
A civil society organization, the Committee for the Protection of Peoples Mandate (CPPM) has condemned in the strongest terms, the show of shame conduct of former Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State in absconding from the law when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) visited his Abuja residence recently to arrest him to answer questions with regards to investigations over abuse of public office and trust while he was Governor.
In a press statement issued in Lagos on Sunday 21st April 2024 and signed by it’s executive director Nelson Ekujumi, the group stated that, “We are traumatized and betrayed by former Governor Yahaya Bello conduct as a former custodian of public trust, for being on the run for the simple reason of giving account of his stewardship to the Nigerian people through an agency of state statutorily empowered by law to do so.
According to CPPM, we are quite aware that this allegations of abuse of public trust has hung over the head of former Governor Yahaya Bello even when he was in office, but because he had constitutional immunity from arrest and prosecution, the anti corruption agency let him be until after his tenure in office when his immunity cover expired, to then invite him for questioning and subsequent arrest due to his failure to honour the EFCC summons.
CPPM has observed lately, former Governor Yahaya Bello shameful activities to whip up public sentiments and blackmail against the present leadership of EFCC just like he did to the Abdul Rasheed Bawa EFCC leadership for the simple crime of holding him accountable for public trust, but we wish to assure him that this time around, he will fail.
The civil society organization commended the EFCC for remaining focused and committed to it’s mandate of fighting corruption within the confines of the law, as the Nigerian people are solidly behind it and would not succumb to the campaign of blackmail and calumny against it for discharging its functions constitutionally.
CPPM also used the occasion of the press statement to call on Nigerians to support the EFCC in the war against corruption and abuse of public trust by circulating widely the public declaration of former Governor Yahaya Bello as a wanted man on the run from the law as our own contribution to getting him arrested to render account of his stewardship of public office which he is refusing to do, but is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable.
