Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha has urged Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) and Chief Judge of the Federal High Court (FHC), Abuja, to discountenance the petition written by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against Justice Taiwo Taiwo for lack of merit.
In the said petition, EFCC alleged professional misconduct and abuse of judicial powers against the judge for granting an order enforcing Okorocha’s fundamental human rights.
Okorocha’s letter, titled – Re: EFCC Reports Justice Taiwo to NJC over Restraining Order on Okorocha, Saraki” – noted that “contrary to the impression being created by the EFCC through its chairman, the order granted by Justice Taiwo was made pursuant to two fundamental human rights suits that I filed before the Court”.
He added that the move against him by the EFCC “smacks of political vendetta and persecution”.
The governor stated that the EFCC operatives ransacked his house in Jos, Plateau State, in May 2017, hoping to find something incriminating against him but found nothing.
The commission also arrested almost all his principal staff “and in every case, insisting that they must make statements to indict me. When they refused, they were kept in custody for two days”.
He said: “My political opponents accused me of nursing an ambition to contest for the Deputy Senate President. In their reasoning, they said the position will give me an edge to contest for President in 2023; so, everything must be done to get me out of the way.
“Instead of the Ibrahim Magu-led EFCC to prove its case before the court, having submitted to its jurisdiction, it has resorted to cheap blackmail, needless name-calling and unwarranted arm-twisting, all in a bid to achieve their sinister motive of decimating me by all means…”
Okorocha called on the NJC Chairman and the FHC Chief Judge to counsel EFCC to demonstrate confidence in the ability of its lawyers to defend it and that of the judiciary to dispense justice instead of making “hollow attempt at forum-shopping and name-calling.”
