 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arrested former Emo State Governor, Rochester, and allegedly have refused to question him 24 hours later. And former governor of Anambara State, Pete Albee, has dumped the People's Democratic Party PDP and his presidential ambition. Well, this is plus politics. I'm Mary Anacoll. Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have arrested Rochester's former Emo State Governor. The senator representing Emo West had earlier declined to be taken away by operatives, insisting that he will not submit himself to the anti-graft agency without a warrant. But security operatives broke the entrance doors to get into the home of the former governor. In a statement, Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC's spokesperson, said they had orders to bring the former governor to stand trial before a federal high court in Ibuga. Acoracha's family has now accused EFCC of failing to interrogate him 24 hours after his arrest. His daughter, Ulauma Acoracha, also confirmed that her father's arrest and detention might be part of plots to stop him from participating in the APC presidential screening and primaries. Well, joining us to discuss this is Delay Farotemi. He's a political analyst. Thank you so much, Mr. Farotemi, for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, it was a pleasure. So, I mean, the whole world watched as what some people would term as, you know, a scene from Mission Impossible, you know, play out on our screens. We saw the live footage from the sitting room of the senator and we also saw what was happening outside thanks to press men. I just want to get a feel of what you think actually transpired and why it had to take that turn as opposed to him being invited to the EFCC on a normal day. Well, I guess when you, when you move away from the theater and you look to the substance, you'll find very quickly that what you're just saying, Okuru Char is not playing this, the game according to the script is being handed. It's a simple enough thing. Number one, the man is not just being arrested. He'd been arrested before, he'd been charged before a court. He was enjoying an administrative bill according to the EFCC. His next court appearance would appear to be on the 30th of May. He had absconded, no, he had declined to appear before the court at his last sitting. I think that was a match. So, ordinarily, if the EFCC was interested in ensuring his appearance before the court, the administrative bill that he had enjoyed would be revoked. We don't know yet if that is what had been done, but it would appear to be the reasonable assumption to make. If the administrative bill has been revoked, the EFCC had not arrested him this time around in order to be interrogating him. They've moved beyond the point of interrogation. The man has been charged. He's been charged for I think money laundering to the tune of 2.9 billion or something along those lines. So, if they are now arresting him in the manner that we all watched, which is not new, if the truth be told, you'll find dozens of videos online where the same EFCC had deployed similar tactics against people they've labeled YAHU boys. They'll go to hotels, burst into hotels, arrest everybody in the hotel and then begin a process of screening to ensure who the YAHU person is and who isn't. So, if a YAHU senator is sorry to say, because that's what it would appear to be now, is now being peaked by the same agency, well, I would say to you that he probably just didn't have the script the way he's been instructed. Because, ordinarily, I really don't know what he has done. There is difference from what all of them have done and this time around, picking him up at the time in the circumstances, deploying so much force. He doesn't say a lot that is positive about the EFCC, but he also doesn't in any way accelerate roachers himself, because if the truth be told, the EFCC made a case. He had a bill, he'd been flouting the terms, he refused to appear in court, they are within their right to arrest him. He's the manner of the arrest that we might deprecate. I'm quoting the spokesman for the former governor and senator. He did say something about the fact that there was a high court order from Pothakots that had barred the EFCC from prosecuting this case. In fact, he was on another station showing or handing out a copy of that court judgment. In fact, he also alleged that the EFCC had been slammed a 500 million Naira fine that had not been paid and that EFCC had also not gone to court to vacate that order. And so that the EFCC is also, one way or the other, you know, in bridge of the court. There's nothing new there. In the first place, I've said this agnostic. Nigeria is not governed by laws. So when you have a situation where a senator, a former two-time governor, takes off to a court in Pothakots, he gets himself a court order in Pothakots, stopping the EFCC from doing what it is doing. EFCC also will tell you that under the administration of justice, criminal justice laws, they are entitled to do their job without hindrance by way of any court order. There would have multiple levels. At the end of the day, nothing will happen to Okorocha. It's only about the administration of impunity. Okorocha will play the script by the time he comes out of EFCC, confinement, he'll probably withdraw his candidacy like a good boy. And he would, of course, like every other woman, once they recant, we've heard it from Adam Oshio Molle, join us and you are immune. He's one of the foundation members of EFCC. So can anyone expect that anything will happen to him? All that you're seeing is that in the moment, he is required to act in a manner that is inconsistent with his own choices. And when he finally understands that he has to play according to the script, they'll put him on the back, he'll go back to the chambers of the Senate. That was the Senate of the February Republic. They will go back to the Senate again and make laws for the lesser mortars. And EFCC will promptly go back to chasing the Yahoo boys and filtering people through their processes. But at the end of the day, this is not about the Nigerian people. It has nothing to do with an anti-corruption war, nothing of the sort. It's impressive, right? It's not that that can't be the case. It's the father to me, you're insinuating. It's the father to me to put everything the EFCC is doing. So it's a waste of time. It's just another circus of anti-corruption. I'm sorry. Are you insinuating that this is politically motivated as opposed to the fight against corruption? Of course it is. I'm asking because there are people who are on the side of the EFCC saying that, look, he mismanaged funds when he was governor. He's not necessarily so. So why would this be politically motivated? I mean, like you have also said, he's a member of the All Progressive Congress. If he were to be a sacred cow, would he be dragged as he was dragged to the glare of the whole public? Let me repeat what I said to you earlier. Nigeria is not interested in fighting corruption. If we were interested in fighting corruption, certain key members of the Bwari administration or regime would not decide in that place. They were already on their neck. They had corruption charges hanging around their necks before they became part and parcel of that cabinet. Okorocha is a very good company. It's not different from any one of the remaining lots, whether they be in the cellar or they be in the federal cabinet. So it's not as if there is anything extra. In fact, there is one that was convicted that joined some sort of reprieve that is that as a chief whip of beside it. So let's get something clear that Okorocha's store is nothing new. That actually gives him the bonafide to be a member of the Nigeria ruining class. There is nothing new there. I'm not condoning it, but I'm pointing it out to you. So if they're chasing after Okorocha, you need to look beyond an anti-corruption fight because it's obviously not about anti-corruption. Corruption is not, Bwari is very comfortable with corruption. If you recall, just before the primary process started, he even went as far as to instruct the FCC not to get involved with the process. So you would understand that if they are now moving beyond that, it's not because Okorocha's is corrupt. All of them are the same. So there must be a reason for going after Okorocha at this time. I'm not validating anything. I don't know, but nobody is going to convince me that this is about is also somebody telling you that the allegations against the accountant general of the federation is motivated by an anti-corruption. But of course it's not. They must have their own fighting that is going on. And they are going to be casualties in their game of thrones. But let nobody be fooled into thinking that there is an anti-corruption battle going on. Anything but, please, is an infight amongst them. They know why they're having their intra-class battles. But it will not result in anything that would affect the poor man on the street. It will not move the need doing them in any anti-corruption war because there is none. The problem of Nigeria is not corruption. It's impunity. And Okorocha knows that. He also knows that the levels of impunity will be shifted in his favor once the balance is restored in their coven. So we can discuss this and be having our episodic gyrations. Talk about it, enjoy the talk, but it changes nothing. Okorocha is merely paying for not doing what is meant to do in the coven. When they are done punishing him within the coven, me and you will not be caught. You won't know anything about it. It will end there. Noise. End of story. After all the drama with Dino Melae. What happened to him? Nothing. Nothing. Fire shape? Nothing. Name one that they have prosecuted in seven years. Nothing. Nothing will happen to him. We can enjoy talking about this in another year. I'm telling you straight up, unless the system changes to hold it. Even the people chasing Orochas needs to be chased. So it is not a situation that should excite us as citizens quote and unquote. Because it really doesn't affect us. It's their own aim fighting. This is yet another one of their wars. Do not die in their war. It's their war. It's not about us. I'm curious. When you say that there are reasons and those reasons are personal to the people in your words, the coven. What sort of a threat would Orocha be? In the scheme of things, let's look at it from the presidential ticket angle. In terms of weight and who would be able to appeal across the board, does he even fall between the first five? I'm just curious. So much so that I'm trying to understand your narrative. If it were something I would buy into, how heavy is Orocha in the scheme of things? If it be anything to go by, what you're saying, that it's because it's not plain to the scripts that I'm wondering, what script? Let me explain something to you. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist and I'm not one. But when something does not huddle, when you reason normally, then you're forced to begin to look at those things that might not appear to be the same because the situation is simply not the same. Now, you said of what significance really is Orocha in the scheme of things. You say that because you assume that they are all playing for the presidency. Emo state is in a state of flux. There has been an ongoing battle between Orocha and the government of Emo state. There's been that ongoing battle for a while. You've got people kidnapped in churches. You now have a situation where the man is saying, look, for good or for bad, I have purchased a hundred million Naira tickets for the presidency. I want to be screened. And if you are arresting me at this time, I am not going to be able to attend the screening. Those ensuring that I cannot even qualify to proceed further. Now, if a man has a court appearance for the 30th of the month has been absconding consistently since he was first charged in January, last appearance was in March. They say it's been Rod Dodging and running away from being served. Question is, this is not a civil trial. You don't run away from being served. You already charged the person to cause. The important thing is to revoke the belief he is not showing up. The timing of the arrest, the severity of the first deployed, that is of course not to discount the fact that the man also acted like a truant by not submitting himself once he saw them. He cannot talk about an arrest warrant at that point. So I'm not suggesting that the court has been treated any different from any of the persons that the FCC has deployed its forces against. But I am saying that considering the timing, considering also that this is an administration that has shown itself to be very, very comfortable with corruption, this man is not different from any one of the other members of the Coven. There is nothing about, he's not more corrupt than the other members of that Coven. But in this case, he is trying to become the president in the Coven. Let this sink in for a second. I'm saying to you that a two-time governor of Amos State, a sitting senator of the Republic, was called out of his home like any common criminal or even a fellow citizen who has not done anything other than being suspected of having done something, something, something, something has been established. He is treated like that. Now, is that the usual way they treat themselves? That kind of treatment is reserved for commoners like me and you. When you see that kind of treatment deployed, you now have to start asking yourself, what is different this time around? Roachers and other members of the Coven are more comfortable and they will know exactly what they have bought from each other. But I'm simply saying, if corruption was the basis for the arrest of Roachers or Roachers, the Nigerian Senate should be emptied of senators. They shouldn't be able to have Quran in that place or in the federal cabinet for that matter. So I'm simply saying that look beyond the noise is the election season. The man was, if it was about buying votes and the buy delegate, the man could only well have emerged as a presidential candidate if he had enough money to deploy. So and that may be the thing the 2.9 billion has been kept to be deployed at the election ground. For whatever reason, I think we should pay attention. Yes, he has a criminal charge in front of him, but this could have been managed differently. He left it open to the suspicion that they are politically on that one. What they have done in their Coven is not my business. I don't know, but that is their parents that it has given. Okay, let's talk about because you've raised a lot of very interesting points. I've listened to conversations about this on the radio. I've watched other people talk about it. It calls to question the seriousness about the war against corruption, whether it be now, whether it be before, even in the future. Again, what does this say about our crime fighting institutions, especially the EFCC, the ICPC, have they ever worked because it calls to question all of the people who have ever been taken in by the EFCC. And with the drama that we saw a few days ago, it calls to question all of those things. And then it's this is a three pound question. What about the trust of the average Nigerian in leadership in general, whether it be on the state level at the state level or the federal level in fighting whatever it may be, whether it be corruption. And of course, those who are looting from the nation's coffers. Let me, you've asked a lot of questions, let's unpack them one by one. One, it will be delusional for anyone to suggest that there is an anti-corruption war going on in Nigeria today or at any time in the last 20 years or thereabout. There hasn't been one. There has never been one. What you've seen have been episodic appearances of that carnivore, that circles of anti-corruption that is designed to distract the people and to then give them the impression that something is being done. Meanwhile, the real problem has never been corruption. The real problem has always been impunity. The refusal to ensure that they are due punishment for crime, not even arrest in most cases. So let's forget those lies and the charity. Seven years who has been convicted, aside from the poor, Yahoo Boy or the one who is always been the petty criminals. The FCC, in all fairness, let's be truthful to ourselves. That's the institution. There are good men and women there. They will do well if they are, if they were in a society that is allowed to function the way one should function, most of them have had the occasion to speak with a few. They have a lot of regrets about the way their works are usually scattered by their political lot. But it does not change the fact that the body is redundant because the political will to allow it to do its job is simply not there. The Nigerian political class cannot afford to fight corruption because itself is rooted. You just need to look at the entirety of the current, the ongoing political circles of primaries and all of them. That's sufficient to let you know. Let's keep that to one side. You talk about the erosion of public trust. Nigerians have given up on this country. Let's be sincere with ourselves. We are all hoping that something change, that something will happen to catastalize some change. But the truth of the matter is that no Nigerian that I know of is waiting to see something happen in the area of anti-corruption because we've all come to realize that there is no such thing is not going to happen. Those who should be doing it are the most corrupt and they have no interest in doing anything about it. So the public trust in the capacity of the system for self-correction or for anything resembling, the remotely resembling anti-corruption drives, the people don't expect it. We've all become completely cynical because we can see, repeatedly, our hopes have been that Wari came on the wing of change. He was promising the biggest credential of dinner. Wari was anti-corruption and his capacity to fight insecurity on both counts, negative zero. So the capacity is gone. The people themselves have lost hope. So if you are still talking about public trust, forget about it, it's gone. We already know that we are being ruled by a coterie of thieves. We sometimes hope that maybe one PTOs and be a little nicer and less banal. But the reality is that nothing has changed if anything has grown worse. In fact, the truth is it has grown worse under the APC. We've never seen corruption this brazen. Jonathan, sorry please, one final point. Jonathan never appointed a person who had EFCC charges on his neck into his cabinet. And that was the person who said was the most corrupt at that time. But today, how many ministers in that cabinet have EFCC charges on their neck? How hard, I should say. But that's the honest story for another day. Like you mentioned earlier, and we're in the election season, with everybody's campaigning, people are putting out adverts and speaking nicely and rolling out the best of vocabularies, asking for our votes once again. But all that you have said, again, not to sound like I do not believe or I mean, or I'm skeptical, but there are people who also believe that the EFCC is working, is trying its best. But if we are to go forward as a country, should this be a wake up call to us? And do you think that we've gotten to the point where we are certain, we are resolute that we will not vote in yet another person who we will be crying about in the next four years? Or I think the other way to ask it is when will we be able to wake up to our responsibilities as voters and understand that we can't have it business as usual? Look, the Nigerian is a long way off from beginning the journey to rectitude. In the last, I believe in the last couple of weeks, I have had several opportunities to be despondent about the challenges of our country. And this is because an electoral cycle is upon us, probably the most important election if one will hold in my lifetime. But the average Nigerian is so disconnected from the system that I am afraid that we might not be able to do the needful. But I will still hold on to some shred of optimism. Let's continue to watch what the process will throw out. Perhaps there might come a candidate who might come with a message of hope and a message of change. But the current set are just grave diggers. I don't see anything to provoke hope currently. But you don't know what tomorrow might bring. And we live in hope. Perhaps somebody will come with a message, with a vision that might galvanize the Nigerian people who are today. All I'm hearing are people preaching personal changes, none of which will save us. What you are saying, underbawaring with the EFCC, with the Okorotas episode, pull it back a little and you remember that you saw something similar with fire shape, crying over his neck, wearing the braids upside down. You saw it, we did not, jumping out of moving bus. You saw it with Tim Pre. You saw it with Alame. It's a long history. When we have a transformational leader who has vision behind which to unite the people, we might come out of this mess. But our chances are dwindling by day because personal changes will save us. I mean, at times like these people make mention of the fact that we have a national orientation agency that's half past dead. Political parties are only canvassing for votes that will help them win the position. Maybe a few people like you who are interested in educating the average voter, I see that people like you are having those conversations, but at what capacity? Because, again, one person can do just this much. Do we need more of these conversations to be had, not just on the radio, not on TV, but where more and more people can be educated as to their rights, as to how they can participate. Because we keep asking for strong institutions to be built, but where do we start the building process? No Voltron is going to save Nigeria. There is no Voltron anywhere. There is no Superman. He's going to be the average Nigerian coming to the knowledge of the fact that he has no other country to call his own. He has to be the one to stand up and save himself. Looking to the political class is a waste of time. However, leadership is key in every situation. So yes, we will continue to agitate in our own little space and with as many platforms as are available to us to reach the people to educate them. But that's the best we can do. We can only seek to educate, hoping that the people themselves will come to the knowledge of the fact that selling their conscience, selling their votes, detaching from the process, or finding alternative means of engagement with the system, which only exacerbates our situation, would not serve the purpose. We all need to find the engagement with the process. There are many beautiful young men and women working all over the country. I know a few. They speak in the area of voters' education, mobilization of voters, citizens to go and register to vote. But how is INEC helping that process? Look to the ongoing primaries and the parties. You see that even the political parties, they are clearly not designed as agents of change. They are just platforms for the capture of power. So it still needs to change. It might be that we're still with enough time to do something, or it might very well be that the change is already out of our own act. But what is clear is that looking to individuals for anything beyond total leadership and direction pointing is a waste of time. It has to be the people acting in concert before anything can change. Individuals can only be inspired by their own examples. But that's all they are in the big loss. The people themselves have to get to the point. It becomes quite frustrating when you seek to explain things to... I think that we lost that connection. Can you hear me? I think we lost that connection. But Daily Fire to Me is a political analyst. Yeah, we lost you briefly. Well, because time is not on our side, I want to say thank you very much for being part of the conversation. We'll only hope that things can get better. Daily Fire to Me is a political analyst and he has been talking to us. We'll take a break now. When we come back, we will be discussing the resignation of Pete Albee from the People's Democratic Party. Stay with us.