The news reaching our media office this evening regarding the arrest of Senator Theodore Orji, a serving Senator of this 9th Assembly and two-term governor of Abia State between 2007 to 2015 by the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission is highly uncalled for, wrong, and condemnable.

Given the fact that Senator Orji just came from a Dubai medical check-up and the anti-graft agency arrested him for failure to submit his international passport to EFCC following allegations of funds misappropriation while in office as Abia State governor, he is entitled to be allowed enough time for rest. Taking into consideration his age bracket, he was not supposed to be denied freedom especially when he is not running away from custody nor trying to abscond from trials, so decorum should be followed in handling him as a respected senior citizen.

It is an aberration to his personal liberty to deny him freedom or demanding the seizure of his Intl passport when such pronouncement or order was not given by a court of competent jurisdiction.

There are piles and deluge of corruption allegations knocking on the door of EFCC but remains unattended to simply because they have to do with loyalists to the APC-led federal government. Why has the anti-graft agency not been able to arrest and prosecute the indicted persons under whose watch over 167bn Naira was diverted and looted in Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA between 2016 and May 2021?
Does it mean persons served and still serving in the government of President Muhammed Buhari are hosts of heavens with no iota of corrupt tendencies in them?

What of the revelations made by Former CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamidu Sanusi that what Nigeria worked for and saved for 35years were wiped out in the last 5years. What has EFCC done to probe this allegation even when several agencies of the government had made shocking revelations to buttress the claims? The persons working under this government in the past 5years to date, are they ghosts that EFCC could not reach them for invitation, interrogation, and probing? Why does the anti-graft agency allow herself to be used as a witch-hunting tool to silence, threaten, cow, intimidate and harass party opponents against the standard of popular democracy?

We want to make it abundantly clear that Nigeria under the watch of this government has lost billions of dollars to misappropriation and no effort is ever being made by EFCC to arrest and prosecute the culprits. Why such selected justices!

We urgently call on all the PDP governors and stakeholders to stand up against this continuous harassment of opposition party members in the name of fighting corruption. Senator Orji is residing here in Nigeria, he traveled and came back to his fatherland, why all this calculated monitoring against his personal liberty and dignity of the human person?

PDP Coalition in her discretion and commitment is fully armed to the teeth with all available legal apparatus within her disposal to defend Senator Orji to ensure no infringement is meted out to his personality, civil and human rights by any person, agency no matter how highly placed.

We wish to reiterate emphatically that Senator Orji is allowed to rest as a returnee from a medical check-up and investigating him should not be roughly handled to ruin his health and liberty.

Chief Dr. Emeke Kalu, National Coordinator, PDP Coalition.