Obiano reacts as EFCC places him on watchlist

The Anambra State Government has fumed at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over what it describes as media trial of outgoing governor Willie Obiano.

The EFCC had earlier written a letter to the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) requesting the immigration to place Governor Obiano on a watchlist and inform it anytime he is travelling out of the country from any of the international airports, as well as other points of entry and exit.

But according to Don Adinuba, the Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, the EFCC is being used by politicians who lost the Anambra governorship election 2021 to Obiano’s All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

In a statement on Thursday titled, ‘EFFC’s Inelegant Drama over Anambra Governor’, the Abia commissioner described the move by the EFCC as politically-motivated.

The statement read in part, “The EFCC knows full well that it is acting inelegantly in this instance, and so has tried as much as possible not to make an official public statement on the alleged placing of Chief Obiano on the watch list. It furtively gave a section of the media the news report it wrote based on ostensibly its letter to the NIS on November 15.

“Governor Obiano is out of the country currently. And he travelled through one of the country’s international airports. He did not disguise himself, but rather left the country with his identity fully disclosed at the necessary immigration point.

“The EFCC sounded more inelegant when it claimed in the sponsored press report that it received intelligence reports that the governor plans to ‘flee’ from Nigeria once he hands over power next March 17 to the newly elected Anambra State governor, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo. Chief Obiano has never left any persons in doubt that he will relocate to his base in the United States once he finishes his tenure. As early as Wednesday, March 4, 2020, he announced his decision to a meeting of the Anambra State Council of Elders.”