Nigeria antigraft agency, the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said that the Deputy Senate
President, Ike Ekweremadu, is not an anti-corruption ambassador of the agency
and urged members of the public to disregard the report stating otherwise.
EFCC spokesperson, Mr. Wilson
Uwujaren, said in a statement that the EFCC National Assembly Liaison Officer,
Suleiman Bakari, went beyond his assignment by decorating Ekweremadu. He stated
that as an anti-corruption agency that could arrest any individual found
wanting, the EFCC could never name anyone as its ambassador.
The statement read in part, “The
attention of the EFCC has been drawn to some reports in the print and online
media, on April 20, 2016 claiming that the anti-graft agency has decorated the
Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, as Anti-Corruption Ambassador. The statement
issued to the Press by the Special Adviser to the Deputy Senate President, Uche
Anichukwu, stated that the purported decoration, was carried out by the EFCC
National Assembly Liaison Officer, Suleiman Bakari who was quoted to have said:
‘On behalf of my acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu and the entire
management and staff of the EFCC, decorate you as an Anti-Corruption Ambassador
and formally present this frame, as a token of our appreciation to your person
and office, and as a symbol of the institutional partnership between the EFCC
and the National Assembly’.
The EFCC totally dissociates itself
from the purported action of Sulaiman Bakari as he acted entirely on his own.
He clearly acted outside his brief as a liaison officer as the management of
the Commission at no time mandated him to decorate Ekweremadu or any officer of
the National Assembly as Anti-Corruption Ambassador. The statutory mandate of
the EFCC is the investigation and prosecution of all economic and financial
crimes cases, which does not include the decoration of individuals as anti-
corruption ambassadors. The Commission is not in the habit of awarding titles
to individuals. And those enamoured of titles, knows the quarters to approach
for such honours, not the EFCC.
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