Tobi Adebayo
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has reacted to a trending audio tape in which one of its operatives, Mohammed Idris alleged that the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has been compromising corruption cases being handled by the agency.
In the audio tape obtained by Daily Nigerian, Idris could be heard saying “Malami now controls the EFCC. The commission is in his hands. Once Malami speaks, the account will be unfrozen. They are unfreezing suspects’ accounts, including the big cases.”
However, the Commission, in a statement issued on Thursday by its spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said that there was “no room for external manipulation of corruption cases.”
The statement read “Without prejudice to the outcome of the investigation, snippets of the audio recording clearly showed an abysmally compromised officer dropping names to ingratiate his benefactor, a relative of a crime suspect.
“By the alleged action, the said officer is no more than a corrupt fifth columnist with scant regard for the values of the commission.
“The action is contemptuous of the established Standard Operating Procedure of the EFCC. Such professional indiscretion has no place in the new EFCC.
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“The commission encourages citizens who encounter any such unprofessional conduct by personnel of the EFCC to report to the commission in support of our quest to build a better agency.”
“Reporting such conducts has been made easy by the Eagle Eye App, a financial crimes reporting application which was launched earlier in the year.
“Our operations are guided by established professional precepts which do not support the kind of discretion that could allow for manipulation by external actors.”
