The attention of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission has been drawn to a news publication on page 8 of Thisday and page 4 of Leadership Newspapers of October 22, 2013
that lumps the Commission among agencies of government touted as highly corrupt.
The report was said to be the result of a 2013 National Crime Victimization and
Safety Survey conducted by CLEEN Foundation in collaboration with
the MacArthur Foundation.
Ordinarily such a report ought not to be
dignified with as response save for the fact that it is misleading and impinges
the integrity of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Without mincing
words, the Commission considers its integrity as a core value and has toiled
relentlessly to sustain its reputation as an effective law enforcement
organisation with zero tolerance for corruption. It will therefore not fold its
hand while some arm chair researchers desperate to justify a grant, use the
result of a spurious survey to cast aspersion on its integrity.
While not trying to speak for other
agencies, the EFCC challenges the authors of the survey to publish the
parameters used in the exercise to arrive at the sweeping conclusion and stigmatisation
of an agency as corrupt. If we may ask, how many people in Borno, Ekiti , or Cross River states have come
in contact with operatives of the EFCC to be able to make informed opinion as
to whether they are corrupt or not? Which towns, local governments and wards did
the survey cover? What questions were asked; what response evaluation methods
were used?
For
a country with a population of over 160million, it is the height of
irresponsibility for some NGO to sit in their cosy offices, design survey
questionnaires and administer to their friends and cronies only to publish the
result as a national aggregate of opinion.
EFCC is proud of its record when it
comes to integrity. The mere fact that operatives of the Commission cannot
easily be induced is one reason why cases of impersonation of operatives of the
Commission by fraudsters are rampant. While some of these fraudsters have been
arrested, prosecuted and convicted, others are still on the prowl.
A few examples will suffice: One
Muhammad El Ameen Al Haleel, who was prosecuted by the EFCC and sentenced to
three years imprisonment for obtaining N60million from Dr. Shuaibu Sani
Teidi, a governorship aspirant in Kogi State with a promise to facilitate a
meeting between him and the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Muhammad Namadi Sambo, to ensure that he, Teidi, got nominated as the
governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Al-Haleel also
promised to give N10 million of the money to the then EFCC Chairman, Mrs.
Farida Waziri to get clearance for Teidi from the EFCC to enable him stand for
the 2011 election.
Teidi, a former Director, Pension
Administration in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation
who is currently in Kuje prison, is being prosecuted by the EFCC alongside 39
others persons over a N4.56 billion Pension scam.
Similarly, a former Kogi Central
Senatorial candidate, Alhaji Abdulazeez Bello- Azeez, was arrested at the
Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Lagos,
for allegedly impersonating the Director of Operations of the EFCC, Mr.
Olaolu Adegbite.
He was at the hotel premises to further
an advance fee fraud scheme targeted at Mrs Mercy Orji, wife of the Abia State
Governor, Mr. Theodore Orji. He reportedly posed as the EFCC’s Director
of Operations with a fake identity card bearing the name of E.
Adegbite. Bello
was arrested on January 27, 2013 while negotiating with some aides of his
would-be victim.
A
few weeks ago, a self styled Assistant Commissioner of Police, a Dr. Kunle Adeshola
who has been parading himself as an operative of the Commission and defrauding
officials of government agencies under the guise of conducting phantom
investigations was arrested. He was nabbed on Thursday October 10, 2013 in the
course of trying to brow beat the Chief Executive of a federal government
agency to write a letter supposedly to the Inspector General of Police to
second him to the agency.
This is just a tip of the iceberg of how
fraudsters have and still use the name of the Commission to obtain gratification
from members of the public who are all too willing to pay because of their
morbid fear of the agency.
Were these cases not reported and the
fraudsters arrested and prosecuted, the impression would have been the EFCC is
a very corrupt anti-graft agency that has agents out there that liaise with the
corrupt elements for settlement.
The EFCC does not treat matters of
discipline and integrity of its officers with levity. There is a full fledged
directorate of the agency, the Department of Internal Affairs that is saddled
with the responsibility for ensuring that staff of the agency abide by it code of ethics. Members of the public
who claim to have encountered any officer of the Commission that requested for
gratification can report such matters to the department and be rest assured
that such an officer will not be spared. Such complaints can be forwarded to
the Director, Internal Affairs Department at Block C, EFCC headquarters, 5
Fomela Street, off Adetokunbo Ademola crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja, or call any of
these numbers: 097831798, 097831799, 08036076316, 08191534236 and 09-4604628 or
send an email to: dia@efccnigeria.org.
They could as well send a message through the EFCC facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Official-EFCC/509762239046271.
More importantly, It is not longer
sufficient for any faceless person to claim they have come in contact with some
bribe-seeking operatives of the Commission, such claims must be justified by
naming the operatives in question and the circumstance under which the
gratifications were demanded and received, the objective being to clean up the
system, if it requires cleaning.
The question to ask therefore, what did any of
these people who say they encountered cases of corruption in EFCC do to stem
the tide? If they did not feel comfortable coming back to the EFCC with the
details, did they pass on the information (and any evidence) to CLEEN and
MacArthur Foundation to challenge the Commission with?
Until they do so, the Commission is of
the opinion that the so-called National Crime Victimization and Safety Survey,
at least the aspect concerning the EFCC, should be thrown into the waste bin,
where it rightly belongs.
Wilson
Uwujaren
Ag. Head, Media & Publicity
22nd October, 2013
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