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Nigerians who have one score or another to settle with perceived enemies use the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as the attack dog

|  By Mike Akpan  |  Mar. 11, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

WHEN Ibrahim Lamorde appeared on the floor of the Senate last year for screening and confirmation as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, he was manly enough to admit that some corrupt elements have infiltrated the anti-corruption agency. Lamorde knows better. He is a foundation member and also one of the longest serving staff of the Commission established in 2003 with Nuhu Ribadu as the pioneer chairman. Then, Lamorde was the pioneer director of operations. When Ribadu was removed as chairman by late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in December 2007, Lamorde acted as chairman before Farida Waziri was appointed the substantive chairperson. And when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan kicked out Waziri last year, Lamorde was reappointed the substantive chairman pending his confirmation by the Senate.

Although he was saying the obvious, it was the first time any head of an anti-corruption agency in Nigeria would openly admit that he was presiding over a sick institution. But it is very doubtful whether, apart from his open admission, Lamorde has done anything to reduce the level of corruption in the Commission ever since he took over as the substantive chairman. Apart from corruption, the Commission is still wearing the crest of an attack dog, a notoriety it earned during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Today, people who have one score or the other to settle approach the Commission with false petitions which some corrupt elements in the anti- corruption agency will jump at. A case in point is a petition sent to the Commission by one Chukwuemeka Anagor against Uzoma Cyril Attang, a director of finance  in the federal ministry of Communication Technology. The petition alleged that Uzoma stole N240 billion from the Police Pension Fund between December 2007 and August 2008 when she served as deputy director in the Police Pension Fund in Lagos. Similar petitions had also been forwarded to the inspector-general of police, chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices (and other related offences) Commission, ICPC, Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, State Security Services, SSS, the Senate President, David Mark, and other relevant federal government agencies. The petition was written against Uzoma, not because Anagor is a patriotic Nigerian, who wants to help in the war against corruption in the country, but because he felt he could use the Commission to ruin her civil service career for refusing to pressure her husband, Cyril Attang, an international businessman and engineer, to withdraw two criminal cases hanging on his neck. The two criminal cases in Abuja courts have to do with the fraudulent activities of Anagor when he served as Abuja branch manager of Royal Diadem Business Logistics Limited, owned by the engineer. The deputy director played a key role in convincing her husband to buy into a business proposal which Anagor submitted to him for which more than N35 million sunk into it had gone down the drain.

On the basis of Anagor’s petition, the IGP, ICPC, CCB and the SSS went into action and probably, after an exhaustive investigation, in addition to written submissions and documents forwarded to them by Uzoma, arrived at reasonable conclusions  on the issues raised by the petitioner. Before then, the engineer husband of the deputy director, who is also party to all the suits that had emanated from the court cases for or against Anagor, also submitted his written representations and documents on the same matter. What Waziri did at the EFCC before she left was to refer the petition to Lamorde’s operations department to investigate. On that basis, a team headed by one Pascal, was set up to handle the investigation. But as soon as Pascal’s team started work, another team led by one Suleiman, sprang up for the same assignment. As if that was not enough embarrassment, on March 22, 2011, a third team led by one M. Yakubu also emerged for another round of investigation on the same subject matter. All these, probably, were meant to break her spirit. And despite the many teams set up on the same matter, the Commission is yet to conclude its investigations on Anagor’s petition after more than two years. EFCC officials continue to subject her to rounds and rounds of invitations for explanations and interrogation on the same matter. The incessant invitations, arrests and detention compelled Perry Ikoro, one of her counsel from S. A. Agwe & Company, to write to the chairman of the Commission on March 23, 20011, insisting that the various files in respect of the investigation be harmonised so as to do justice to the matter.

Apparently, following the letter, the Commission has decided to bring charges against her along with Esai Dangabar, Atiku Abubakar Kigo, Ahmed Inuwa Wada, Mrs. Veronica Ulonma Onyeabula, Sani Habila Zira, Christian Madubuke and John Yakubu Yusuf. Of the 20 charges brought against the accused persons, Uzoma is linked with only five. A close analysis of the charge sheet has revealed that the amount of funds Uzoma was said to have stolen from the Police Pension Fund is nowhere near the N 240 billion being touted by Anagor. All the cheques bearing the various amounts she was said to have stolen bore the name of the director of the Fund. If her only offence was that she signed the various cheques bearing the various amounts allegedly stolen, she was not a sole signatory to the Police Pension Fund accounts. It is therefore very curious that none of the other co- signatories is facing any of the charges for which she is facing trial in court. Besides, most of the people charged along with her are those she has never met in her life having left the Fund early on August 7, 2008 and most of the frauds were said to have been carried out between January 2009 and 2011. Uzoma had made it very clear during interrogations and in written submissions and documents made available to her interrogators that she never handled any cash throughout her tenure in the Police Pension Fund and that before she co-signed any cheque, the relevant voucher must have been verified by all the relevant units in accordance with extant civil service rules and financial regulations before approval by the director of the Fund. It is after all these procedures had been complied with that a cheque would be raised for her to co-sign. The question now is: Have EFCC officials faulted this claim 10 months after commencement of trials of the suspects even as Uzoma is still being interrogated or before rushing her to court or are they playing the script of the blackmailer which is a calculated design to embarrass her or ruin her civil career? Time will tell.

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