The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, CACOL, has accused the Federal Government of deliberately weakening the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The agency on Monday, said it was broke and as a result, cannot sustain its fight against corruption in the country.
EFCC Secretary, Emmanuel Adegboyega, made the disclosure while briefing the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption, at a public hearing on the bill for an Act to establish the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Agency.
CACOL in its reaction through its Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran, decried the situation, saying it shows that anti-graft agencies under President Goodlcuk Jonathan’s administration were dormant.
“History will never be fair to this government as it is obvious that President Jonathan is deliberately starving the EFCC (of fund) so that the institution would become a toothless bull dog,” he said.
“Is it not absurd that the EFCC is underfunded in a country where its National Assembly spends over N150bn yearly as overhead costs; where a Minister bought just two cars for N225m, where the Presidency budgeted N1bn for food?,” he asked.
Adeniran stated further that massive looting has taken over the country, and nothing has been done to check the situation.
“Nigerians are no longer surprised that the EFCC cannot prosecute any of the big thieves and looters in government because the government has incapacitated it. Jonathan’s government is only paying lip service to fighting the scourge of corruption in this country.”
CACOL, however, commended the EFCC on the arraignment of Mr. Fred Ajudua, for fresh charges of defrauding a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi (retd.) of about $8.395m.
“It is a good thing that the case has been reopened, but the EFCC should also query Bamaiyi on how he came about such huge amount. We should not be using state money to protect criminals,” the coalition said.
No comments:
Post a Comment