Press Release
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Ibrahim
Lamorde
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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, has delivered on his promise to
re-professionalise the anti-graft agency in its fight against economic and
financial crimes in the country.
This assertion was made today by Wilson
Uwujaren, head, media and publicity of the Commission during a media
briefing with journalists. Uwujaren stated that Lamorde’s promise to tackle
issues of integrity and professionalism in the Commission has been accomplished
with the acquisition of polygraph machine and training of personnel to
manage it.
“One of the strategies which he promised
to deploy in tackling the issue of integrity was the introduction of polygraph
test for officers and new employees. As we speak, the Commission now has
state-of-the-art polygraph equipment with a crop of polygraph examiners
trained at the American International Institute of Polygraph in Atlanta, Georgia,
United State.”
He added: “New and old staff of the
Commission are now regularly subjected to polygraph test in a determined effort
to ensure that they do not deviate from the core values of the Commission,
which are courage, professionalism and integrity.”
According to him, the acquisition of the
Polygraph equipment and examiners have made the Commission the only law
enforcement agency in entire West Africa with such competence.
Uwujaren also highlighted some of the
efforts of the Commission in the fight against economic and financial crimes in
the country. According to him, the Commission is unrelenting in dealing
with oil theft as more persons have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted.
“A
few months ago, two Indians, Sailesh Kumor Singh, Chadrashekar Sharma were
jailed after successful prosecution by the Commission. The duo were among 12
suspected oil thieves arrested in Brass, Bayelsa State in 2012 by the JTF with
157,822 litres of suspected stolen crude oil.”
The two Indians bagged 15 years jail term.
Besides that, a total of 71 persons have been convicted for oil theft which
include 45 Nigerians, 10 Ghanaians, 13 Pilipinos, three Indians, two Togolese,
one Camerounian and one person from Myanmar.
In the ongoing oil subsidy cases, Uwujaren
stated that one of the major kingpins, Seun Ogunbambo, managing director of
Fargo Energy Limited who was docked for allegedly stealing N4.5 billion in
bogus subsidy claims has absconded and disappeared from the shores of Nigeria
and has consequently been declared wanted. Also, one Azmat Mahmood, a
German citizen of Pakistani extraction has also been declared wanted after
allegedly using his company Nimex Petroleum Limited to defraud the federal
government of over N1.3 billion in a bogus subsidy deal. However, he
noted, the Commission has so far recovered over $5 billion from persons
implicated in subsidy scam while prosecution of over 40 persons continue in
courts across the country.
Significantly, Uwujaren bemoaned the
growing incidence of impersonation of EFCC officials by fraudsters; a situation
which he said has created the erroneous impression of corruption among EFCC
personnel. However, he expressed his delight with the recent arrest of one
Olubunmo Olalekan, who paraded himself as Principal Detective Superintendent of
the EFCC.
He explained that the suspect had
couriered over sixty letters to different top officials of ministries,
department and agencies of government under the pretence that there was a
petition against them, and that he could help them destroy the case if they
play ball.
At the time of arrest, over the suspect
was found with fake letter head papers, 30 GSM SIM cards, assorted
complimentary cards, a laptop computer and printer from where he churns out the
fraudulent letters. He said the suspect will soon be arraigned in court.
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