|
Chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs Farida
Waziri has insisted that nothing will
stop the anti-graft agency from working
with other sister organisations to
ensure that public office seekers with
corruption cases hanging on their neck
are denied further access to loot the
nation’s treasury.
She restated this determination on
Monday August 30, 2010 at the opening
ceremony of a training programme
on Anti-Money Laundering/Control of
Terrorist Financing being
organised by the United States Federal
Bureau of Investigation, FBI for EFCC
operatives and other law enforcement
officers at the Commission’s Training
and Research Institute, TRI, Karu Abuja.
Speaking while fielding questions from
journalists at the ceremony, Waziri said
“We are not
going outside the rule of law but we
have powers to do certain things. I
mean, if you have a case in court and we
know very well that we charged you to
court and the case is ongoing, you have
not cleared your name but you want to
take another corner and be relevant,
there are many ways that we can stop
you.
“You see, you know the law, a man is
presumed innocent until proven guilty by
a court of competent jurisdiction. Now
you don’t publish names that these
people are disqualified by mere
publishing names, you will be violating
their fundamental rights.
But as I told you, there are ways of
working out all these things which I
told you that we will let you know.
“I don’t want a situation where we will
be seeing as misusing our powers to
publish the names. Of course, we have
the names of Politically Exposed Persons
whose cases are pending in court for the
past five years. With the brief on the
cases, this is not violating anything;
we are just telling you that we have
these cases pending. But once you
published a name that this man is
banned, it is a different thing. But we
can’t do that. How we will do it along
with others in the best interest of the
law and the nation, we will keep it as a
strategy for now.”
She further explained that the
collaboration with the FBI on the
training of EFCC operatives as part of
on-going partnership between EFCC and
its counterparts outside the country.
She dismissed errorneous impressions
being created in some quarters that
foreign partners had stopped supporting
the Commission as mere propanda by a
clique for selfish reasons.
In her words,”Yes, we are collaborating
with FBI.
I just came back from the US where I had
four sessions with the
Department of
Justice. We talked about many
things including capacity building,
sharing of information and intelligence.
I also went to the Under-Secretary of
State and we had a session in the
presence of our Ambassador to the US ,
Prof. Adefuye. We have been cooperating.
“You see, that statement that the EFCC
had fallen-off was misinformed. For
obvious reasons I knew where it was
coming from. But it was really not the
situation at all. And I am sure that by
now they have realized that we are
trying our best. They have seen figures
and cases filed that they can
crosscheck. So, it is not story
telling.”
“The cooperation has always been there
with the FBI,
European Union, the UNODC, German
Police, French Police, Met Police and
many others in so many areas.”
In his remarks, FBI representative
leading six others for the training,
Victor Mc Collum corroborated Waziri and
said “my experience since I came here is
that the cooperation has been very large
between the Nigerian law enforcement
agencies and the FBI that I represent.
The relationship has been outstanding.
Everything we have tried to accomplish
here so far, we have been able to do. We
have had great cooperation from the
institutions we have worked with. They
have opened up doors for us. Likewise,
we have been able to provide the
institutions with some assistance and a
lot of collaboration.
“We have worked together on
criminal
investigations and terrorism
matters. So, the cooperation is good.
Our perspective is that the Nigerian law
enforcement agencies are willing, just
as we are willing on the US side.
“Of course, we still have a long way to
go because traditionally law enforcement
agencies tend to be behind the
criminals, we are always trying to catch
up. So, we have a long way to go. But we
have worked together moving in the right
direction. In my perspective, the
cooperation has been very, very
satisfactory. We just really have to
step up to move forward and do the
things we need to do to help maintain
peace and security not only in Nigeria ,
not only in the US but in all parts of
the world as well.
“Historically because criminals are
always initiating the action, and we are
to react to the action, it is difficult
to get ahead of them. However, two
things like following the money of
criminals and terrorists allows us to
stay with them pre-empt them or even be
ahead of them or prevent something from
happening.”
The two-week training programme which
drew about 40 participants from the EFCC,
the Nigeria Police, National Drug Law
Enforcement Agency, NDLEA and the
State Security
Service, SSS, would be
facilitated by six officials of FBI and
one from
Internal Revenue Service, IRS.
Femi Babafemi is Head, Media & Publicity
EFCC
|
