Politicians hunted by EFCC can’t escape by joining APC, Oyegun declares

The All Progressives Congress national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has said that politicians hunted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission cannot run away or be protected by joining the ruling party.

There have been criticisms that many of the politicians majorly from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defecting to the APC are those who have corruption cases on their necks and are being hounded by the EFCC.

But Odigie-Oyegun said on Thursday when he received Senators Florence Ita-Giwa and John Enoh, who recently defected from the PDP to APC at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, that those who feel they will have protection from EFCC by joining APC are wrong.

He said, “‎I know that those who do not wish us well often tend to misinterpret some of these happenings as running away, thinking that they would have protection from the EFCC. Of course, I am not aware in your (referring to Ita-giwa and Enoh) case that anybody is harassing you with the EFCC. In any case, it is obvious and played out today that we do not offer sanctuary to anybody running from the arms of the law. The evidence is all over the place.”

“We welcome you to the headquarters of the APC headquarters. It is an honour that has been bestowed on only very few persons. One thing made your presence significant here. Traditionally, the South-south has been the heart of the unity and oneness of this nation, whether during the civil war or post-civil war.

“In spite of the obvious difficulties that the nation is passing through, people like you voluntarily wanted to assist in this responsibility of helping in nation building.

“Of course, our party does not have the presence it ought to have in the South-south. So when people of your calibre join us in the struggle, we from the South-south are particularly glad and happy. On that parochial basis, I welcome you.”

Sen. Ita-Giwa said responded, that joining APC “is like a home coming, and I am identifying with the people I have known before. I feel very comfortable identifying with the calibre of people in the APC. I will like to correct the erroneous notion that I decamped or they call it defection because there is no party to defect from. I personally stopped attending meetings, in the last two years, just because of the impunity there.

“It is on record that in 2015, I had gone to the presidential candidate to say that I was leaving the party, so I was potentially one of the politicians that were forcefully driven out of the party.”

Former governors of Plateau, Abia and Enugu, Joshua Dariye, Orji Uzo Kalu and Sullivan Chime respectively, who defected to APC from PDP, all have alleged corruption cases hanging on their necks.

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