… Siege Allegedly Linked With Destroying Evidence In High Profile Cases
… Graft Agency Denies Charge
BEVERLY HILLS, CA, November 20, (THEWILL) – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been accused of deploying at least ten heavily armed policemen to occupy the premises of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), restraining her officers from entering the office Complex to perform their lawful duties.
A citizen reporter, Johnson Ayorinde, who filed in the report, said sources at the NFIU confirmed the development on Wednesday.
The report said the unnamed sources frowned at what they described as intimidation to cover up corruption by the Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde.
They however accused the Policemen of attempting to forcefully gain access to the Unit’s offices to destroy useful evidence gathered for the prosecution of certain very important cases of corruption and terrorism.
The citizen reporter further wrote as follows: “Commenting on the development, a legal practitioner, Prosper Robinson described the situation as unfortunate.
He condemned what he described as impunity in defense of corruption by the present EFCC leadership and called on the President to take urgent steps to sanitize the Commission.
Continuing, Robinson lamented that the development is capable of putting spanners on the progress made in the war against money laundering and terrorism in Nigeria, a feat that got Nigeria delisted from the list of high risk countries by the global money laundering watchdog-Financial Action Task Force recently.
He insisted that “NFIU should serve all law enforcement Agencies and not just EFCC. The fact that it is domiciled in EFCC does not give the Commission total control over NFIU.”
The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) is the Nigeria arm of the global financial intelligence unit (FIU) and is presently domiciled within the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as an autonomous Unit. The setting up of the NFIU is part of the efforts of the federal government in combating money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities in Nigeria, and as a precondition for the removal of Nigeria from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list of Non-cooperation countries and territories (NCCTs).
This development appears to have confirmed the long held position by stakeholders that the aim of establishing the NFIU may not be fully achieved if it does not operate independently; a situation that informed the initiation of the NFIU autonomy Bill pending at the National Assembly.
The NFIU autonomy Bill seeks to establish the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Agency as the central body in Nigeria responsible for receiving, requesting, analysing and disseminating financial and other information to all law enforcement and security agencies and other relevant authorities.”
EFCC Denies Allegations
A statement by Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, the EFCC’s Head, Media and Publicity debunked the allegations.
The statement reads, “The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has been drawn to a publication by a certain Johnson Ayorinde alleging a siege on the operations of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU.
“The Commission wishes to implore stakeholders and members of the public to disregard the publication which is patently false and intended to create confusion in the wake of the recent redeployment of the former acting director, Ms Juliet Ibekaku, an assistant director in the Commission.
“There is no unusual presence of armed security at the premises of the NFIU beyond what is necessary to secure its facilities and staff.
“In addition, the Commission has no record of complaints of denial of access or intimidation from any one who has business to conduct with the organisation.”
