25 March, 2026
In the theatre of Nigerian anti-corruption crusade, the script is as predictable as it is perverse: the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and its sister agencies thunder like lions against northern critics of the Tinubu regime, while purring like kittens when the scent of Yoruba APC blood wafts through the air. “No Yoruba has ever stolen even a kobo” — that is the unwritten gospel according to Aso Rock. And heaven help any agency that dares question the holy writ.
Take Abubakar Malami, SAN, former Attorney-General of the Federation and now a vocal ADC chieftain. On 23 March 2026, EFCC operatives, heavily armed and kitted like an invading army, stormed his Maitama residence and other Abuja properties, sealing them for forfeiture without presenting a single valid court order. Malami himself confronted them on site, demanding in a video that went viral: “Where is your court order? The order has elapsed… This matter is pending in court. Where is the order from the court that gave you permission?” The interim forfeiture order they brandished had been granted ex parte on 6 January 2026 by Justice Joyce Abdulmalik — expressly limited to 14 days. It had long expired. Yet the EFCC proceeded, detaining two individuals and marking the properties in a brazen display of executive muscle. (Punch, 24 March 2026; TheCable, 24 March 2026; BusinessDay, 24 March 2026).
This is not law enforcement. This is state-sponsored intimidation, a direct assault on Section 44 of the 1999 Constitution, which protects citizens from compulsory acquisition of property except “in accordance with the law.” As the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, that fearless jurist of the Supreme Court, once thundered: “Justice is the handmaid of truth, and where truth is suppressed, justice is murdered in cold blood.” Here, truth is not merely suppressed — it is dragged into the street and executed in broad daylight.
Malami’s ordeal did not begin yesterday. Summoned in November 2025, detained in December over amended 16-count money-laundering charges involving sums that media leaks wildly inflated to “trillions of Naira” before court documents quietly corrected some to millions, he has faced repeated bail denials, an alleged defiance of a December 2025 FCT High Court interim bail order, and a sustained media trial that violates Section 36(3) presumption of innocence. His office , has repeatedly accused the EFCC of refusing service of court processes. Peter Obi captured the stench perfectly: “It is political persecution… key leaders committed to voting out the current administration in 2027.” Atiku Abubakar called it a “political witch-hunt” and “politicisation of corruption investigations.” (Premium Times and Vanguard reports, December 2025–March 2026; verifiable statements on @aamalamiSAN).
Now pivot to Nasir El-Rufai, another ADC convert and former Kaduna governor. On 24 March 2026 — yesterday — the ICPC finally arraigned him at the Federal High Court in Kaduna on 10 counts of money laundering, conversion of public property, abuse of office and intent to commit fraud over the alleged ₦432 billion Kaduna loan scandal. But the drama outside the courtroom told the real story. One of his wives, Asiya Ahmed El-Rufai, arrived veiled in ash, only to find the main gate locked. A masked DSS operative denied her entry outright. Visibly upset, she asked who to call. Silence. Journalists were similarly barred. The court remanded him pending bail hearing on 31 March. (Daily Trust, 24 March 2026; Premium Times, 24 March 2026; Legit.ng, 24 March 2026).
This was no isolated humiliation. El-Rufai had voluntarily honoured an EFCC invitation on 16 February 2026, secured administrative bail, only to be immediately rearrested by ICPC operatives outside the premises — a classic case of forum-shopping that mocks Section 35(1) right to personal liberty. His 14-day remand order expired 5 March with no fresh charge in a competent court.
Lawyers decried “cruel, inhuman and degrading” restrictions on visits. El-Rufai media handlers posted on @elrufai that the agencies were attempting to “force support for Tinubu’s second term.” Obi and Atiku again labelled it “political persecution” and demanded the release of “political detainees.” (Verifiable X posts and statements, February–March 2026).
While Malami and El-Rufai rot under the weight of expired orders, rearrests, denied family access and armed invasions, Yorubaland remains a corruption-free paradise in the eyes of the EFCC. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Minister of Interior and card-carrying Yoruba APC loyalist, was directly linked to the explosive Betta Edu scandal. In January 2024, Edu’s ministry funnelled ₦438.1 million — part of a larger ₦585 million diversion — to New Planet Project Limited, a company Tunji-Ojo co-founded in 2003 and in which his wife was once a director. CAC records confirmed the payments. Betta Edu was suspended, interrogated and eventually sacked. Tunji-Ojo? Not even a polite summons. He remains in cabinet, untouched. (Arise.tv, 9 January 2024; Premium Times, 27 February 2024; Punch, 10 January 2024).
Dapo Abiodun, Ogun State Governor, faces a formal HEDA Resource Centre petition filed with the EFCC on 23 September 2024. The allegation: fraudulent misrepresentation of a private rice farm as a World Bank-assisted state project, with potential diversion of public funds. Gazette.ng exposed it; HEDA demanded investigation and prosecution. As of 25 March 2026 — zero action. No summons, no probe, no charges. (HEDA statement, 1 October 2024; Gazette.ng, 23 September 2024 & 22 March 2026).
And then there is Sunday Adeyemo, aka Igboho — the Yoruba Nation firebrand. Declared wanted in 2021 for alleged arms stockpiling, he was magically delisted by executive fiat in January 2026 after Yoruba monarchs intervened. No court process, no trial, no conviction. He returned home to a hero’s welcome. Contrast that with Nnamdi Kanu, languishing in DSS detention on similar self-determination and security-related charges despite multiple court bail rulings. One man’s “statesmanlike reconciliation”; the other’s perpetual incarceration. The ethnic arithmetic is as blatant as it is insulting.
This selective blindness is not accidental. It is policy. And it is enforced with the full might of heavily kitted, armed security personnel — the same state apparatus that trembles before bandits and terrorists. While opposition figures face armoured convoys and sealed gates, the Tinubu government negotiates with killers to save face. Agence France-Presse (AFP), the respected French news agency, reported in February 2026 that the federal government paid a “huge” multimillion-dollar ransom — estimates range from N2 billion to N10 billion — plus the release of two top Boko Haram commanders to free over 230 pupils and staff abducted from St. Mary’s Secondary and Primary School in Papiri, Niger State. Intelligence sources confirmed aircraft ferried the cash to Boko Haram strongholds. The government denied it, of course, calling the report “baseless.” But AFP stood by its story. (AFP via RFI.fr, 23 February 2026; Daily Trust/Gazette.ng, 24 February 2026; BBC, 24 February 2026).
Worse, in November 2025, after the release of abducted Kebbi schoolgirls, bandits released a viral video in which they openly mocked the government. “Your government could not rescue the schoolgirls; they negotiated with us,” one bandit boasted while the girls stood beside him. Jets? “Uncountable,” the girls said. The bandit laughed: the authorities had no choice but dialogue. The video circulated widely on social media, a national embarrassment broadcast by the very criminals the state claims to be fighting. (Leadership NG, 26 November 2025; The Whistler, 26 November 2025; multiple verified videos).
Remember when candidate Bola Tinubu roasted the Jonathan administration for “failure” on insecurity? Today, his promoters scream that any mention of kidnapping or banditry is “ Northern opposition trying to tarnish Tinubu’s image.” Yet 31 out of 36 state governors, over two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, stand on the mandate of this same president. The ruling party controls the levers of power, the security architecture, the treasury. How then do a handful of opposition voices suddenly become stronger than the entire machinery of state? Are Nigerians to believe that the ADC, PDP and Labour Party possess some mystical superpower that the APC leviathan cannot match? Or is the real fear that the emperor’s new clothes — the narrative of competence — are being stripped away by inconvenient truths?
The questions demand answers, not deflection:
Why does the EFCC summon the political will to invade Malami’s home with armed goons on an expired order, yet cannot spare a single investigator for Tunji-Ojo’s documented N438 million link or Abiodun’s HEDA petition?
Why is El-Rufai’s wife humiliated at a court gate while Igboho receives executive amnesty without stepping into a dock?
Why does the same government that pays millions to terrorists to free schoolchildren treat northern opposition figures like captured insurgents?
When will the Tinubu administration admit that its anti-corruption war is not colour-blind but Yoruba-blind?
Philosophically, Aristotle warned that “the worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” In Nigeria today, the EFCC is doing the exact opposite: making equal things (alleged corruption) profoundly unequal based on ethnicity and political loyalty. Nelson Mandela, that global icon of justice, declared: “There can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice without the rule of law.” The rule of law here lies in ruins, trampled by selective prosecution, media trials and armed intimidation.
This is not governance. This is ethnic patronage masquerading as anti-corruption. It breeds resentment, deepens north-south distrust and mocks the very “renewed hope” slogan that promised equity. While Yoruba APC chieftains sleep soundly, northern critics face midnight raids, family humiliation and indefinite detention. The message to every Nigerian is chilling: your ethnicity and your loyalty determine whether the law applies to you.
The EFCC’s blindness to Yorubaland is not a bug in the system — it is the system. And until that system is dismantled by the ballot or by the sheer force of public outrage, Nigeria will remain a country where some citizens are more equal than others. No Yoruba has ever stolen a kobo? Tell that to the families of Malami and El-Rufai, to the petitioners against Tunji-Ojo and Abiodun, to the ghosts of Papiri and Kebbi schoolchildren whose freedom was bought with taxpayer millions while opposition voices are silenced with steel and seals.
The court of public opinion has already delivered its verdict. The question is whether the Tinubu government will listen before 2027 delivers its own.
Mohammed Bello the can be reached via [email protected]
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