Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja
Ibrahim Lamorde, EFCC Chairman
The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, has thrown a strong challenge to Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, in the country to look inwards and fully support the anti-graft agency in its concerted efforts aimed at ridding the country of economic and financial crimes.
The comments of the agency’s boss, which were made at a Share Fair workshop, tagged “Fulfilling its mandate: Government Leading Anti-Corruption Efforts”, organized by the CLEEN Foundation, held on August 11, 2015 at the auditorium of the Bolton White Hotel, in Abuja, comes on the heels of an orchestrated “protest” staged at the premises of the EFCC Abuja office, recently, which was carried out by a rented crowd claiming to be representatives of CSOs in the country, under the aegis of Coalition of Civil Liberties and Equity.
Represented by the agency’s Director of Operations, Olaolu Adegbite, he noted that it was essential for the society at large, including the CSOs, to see themselves as partners with the EFCC, in the war on corruption.
“We believe in engaging with the civil society groups, as well as non-governmental organizations, but the events in question, where a group of protesters caused a melodrama at the premises of the agency, accusing the agency of prosecuting corrupt individuals in the country, was most shocking,” he said.
He added that: “It has therefore got to a point, where we now have to sieve those who are partners in progress, from those who though parade themselves as civil society organizations, are actually tools in the hands of some corrupt individuals in the country that we are investigating and prosecuting.”
Lamorde noted that the commission receives tones of petitions every year, “but we go through every one of them, and those that are based on frivolous accusations, we throw away, but …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
