Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, has stated that Nigerians will no longer be held hostage by the twin evils of corruption and impunity.
The EFCC boss stated this while presenting a paper titled “ This Is Our Chance’’ at the symposium organised by members of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, NADL, in Lagos yesterday.
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He assured that the Commission under his watch would challenge anyone, including certain senior lawyers, judges and other judicial officers, against whom concrete evidence for perverting the course of justice had been established.
The spokesperson of the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren stated in a statement that Magu, stated that the Commission, in the course of its anti-graft war, had always been confronted with people he described as ‘‘a gang of rogue elements’’, who had been a spoke in the wheel of the Commission’s activities and also given a bad name to the bar and bench.
According to him, ‘‘the biggest form of corruption is not the ones you find in government offices or banks; it is not the ones that is plaguing the oil industry or pension administration. The biggest, most virulent form of corruption that ever existed is the one that has eaten deep into the fabric of the Temple of Justice.
‘‘It is to you who minister in the temple of justice that we all run to -high or low, mighty or weak, lawmakers, law breakers and law enforcers. It is to the courts that we all run, for protection.
”However, we are all witnesses to the abuse of skills, knowledge, powers, position and privileges by a few rogue elements, who, whilst being a tiny fraction, have an outsized influence on the direction of the Nigerian judiciary and indeed, the Nigerian nation.’’
He, therefore, called on everyone who is pained by the parlous state of affairs in the country to join hands with the Commission to stamp out corruption from Nigeria. ”
Magu, who also described the anti-graft mandate of the Commission as a leveller, added that ‘‘Where hapless Nigerians are defrauded, EFCC will swiftly come to their aid; where powerless Nigerians are short-changed, EFCC will intervene and where there is impunity, EFCC will step in and level the field.’’