A group of lawyers has charged the federal government to deploy the same energy used in the investigation and prosecution of a former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, to those in the present administration that have allegations of corruption and fraud on their heads.
Metuh was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on Tuesday by a Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Okon Abang after he was found guilty of money laundering charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Reacting to the judgment of the court, lawyers under the aegis of Coalition of Public Interests Lawyers and Advocates (COPA) said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration could prove its doubters wrong if and when individuals in the administration that have cases hanging over their heads were given a similar treatment like Metuh’s.
Speaking on behalf of the coalition, Barrister Pelumi Olajengbesi, said: “There is a kind of blood flow that moves in the federal government whenever an opposition is being prosecuted.
“What we are saying is that this same energy should be transferred to people who are within the government.
“We are saying that the energy used in prosecuting Olisa Metuh, that energy should be used to investigate all of these (alleged) corrupt elements in the government.”
He stressed that: “We have (Godswill) Akpabio there, who has a lot of questions to answer with the EFCC. Federal government has not done anything about it.”
The EFCC, in 2018, said the case of alleged fraud involving Akpabio was not over after he (Akpabio) reportedly said that he was a man of peace that had no case to answer with the EFCC.
Olajengbesi also mentioned Mr. Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah, the current Minister of State for Mines and Steel, who he alleged was arrested outside the court premises in 2016 by the EFCC after the police withdrew a case of forgery against him.
Ogah had however faulted the reported arrest, saying he was never arrested and the report of his so-called arrest was “false, wicked and fabricated”.
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