Photos have emerged showing the youths under the banner of the All Progressives Congress Young Leaders Alliance (APC-YLA) when they staged a protest on Friday at the headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja, calling for urgent action against the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle.
Chanting anti-corruption slogans and carrying placards, the protesters accused the EFCC of deliberately going silent on multiple allegations of corruption against the former Zamfara State governor.
According to the group, the commission has failed to act on credible petitions detailing how Matawalle allegedly siphoned public funds while in office between 2019 and 2023.
“We write to formally request that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reopen the investigation into allegations of corruption against Bello Mohammed Matawalle, minister of state for defence,” the group said in a letter submitted to EFCC officials during the protest.
The protesters, who described themselves as a socio-political pressure group based in Kaduna, said Matawalle had recently tried to whitewash his record in a recent TV interview by claiming his administration never received anything close to N70 billion in four years.
They dismissed the claim as a desperate lie, saying official budget documents and state financial reports from that period contradicted the minister’s statement.
Speaking to journalists during the protest, Mohammed Ireyi, spokesperson for the APC-YLA, accused the EFCC of selective prosecution.
“If former governors and ministers like Betta Edu, Yahaya Bello and Darius Ishaku have been investigated or arrested, why is Matawalle being shielded?” he asked.
“Who is stopping the EFCC from doing its job?”
The group referenced a May 2023 statement by Osita Nwajah, then spokesperson for the EFCC, who confirmed that the anti-graft agency was probing Matawalle for “monumental corruption, award of phantom contracts and diversion of over N70 billion”.
Despite that public confirmation, no visible progress has been made, prompting the group to question whether the EFCC has been compromised.
“The EFCC must prove to Nigerians that it is not just a tool used to hound political enemies while shielding loyalists of the current administration,” Ireyi said.
The letter submitted by the group was received by Idowu Adedeji, acting director of security at the EFCC, who promised to pass it on to the appropriate quarters.
Though the EFCC in May 2024 claimed it would conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations against Matawalle, Friday’s protest suggests the public has seen little or no evidence that such a probe is ongoing.
Matawalle served as governor of Zamfara from 2019 to 2023 before being appointed into President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet as minister of state for defence, a position critics now say could be shielding him from accountability.