The Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, notes with dismay, the views attributed to Mallam Garba
Shehu, Director, Media and Publicity, of the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation,
accusing the leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC,
of alleged corruption and insensitivity to staff welfare.
Garba who spoke to
journalists in Abuja yesterday claimed President Goodluck Jonathan has reduced
the EFCC to a toothless bulldog which could not even bark.
It is regrettable that
Shehu, a spokesperson of a leading Presidential candidate with call the media
to disparage a national agency that epitomize the nation’s fight against
corruption.
Were his views based on
facts, it would not have been disturbing. The tragedy is that Shehu choose to
amplify gossips, garnished with outright fabrication, to score cheap political
points. The charges are particularly galling against the well-advertised
commitment of the EFCC not to be dragged into the political fray ahead of the
general elections.
If Shehu has issues with
the fight against corruption under President Jonathan, there are other ways of
selling his party to the electorate rather than maligning the EFCC.
For the avoidance of doubt,
there is no truth whatsoever in the claim by Shehu that, the “EFCC Chairman is
accused by staff of corruption. The Commission staff is also being owed
salaries and entitlements, having not been paid for three months”.
The EFCC is alarmed by this
claim. The chairman of the Commission is respected in the law enforcement
circles for his integrity and professionalism. He values his reputation which
he built over the years and, it will be a great disservice to seek to rubbish
him on the altar of politics. There is no evidence of corruption, either in the
past or present, against the EFCC chair.
Furthermore, the claim that
staff of the EFCC are being owed three months salaries is the figment of
Shehu’s imagination. In the eleven years of its existence as an organisation,
the EFCC has never defaulted in meeting its monthly obligations to staff. Who
are the EFCC staff being owed salaries? We challenge Shehu to name names.
Shehu also makes an issue
of the conviction record of the EFCC. At a time when the rest of the world is
commending the agency for recording 126 convictions in 2014, Shehu elected to
dampen its morale with a disclaimer that is not based on fact. His claim that
the EFCC has not recorded a single high profile conviction under President
Jonathan is mischief taken too far. Only those who are not living in Nigeria
will believe such hogwash.
As
spokesperson to the respected General, Shehu must be careful not to mask his
personal views as those of General Buhari or the APC. We find it hard to
believe that the views expressed by Shehu are those of Buhari or the All
Progressives Congress.
For those who care to know,
Shehu has over the years nursed a grudge against the EFCC and takes every
available opportunity to attack the Commission. Yesterday’s briefing is not the
first such attack by Shehu on the EFCC. Will it be the last?
Evidently, Shehu has
been scavenging for information to tar the EFCC. How else will one respond
to his allusion to turmoil in the EFCC? Were he not up to mischief, he ought to
be discerning enough to cross check information mopped from the gutter press
before elevating them to the pedestal of truth. Obviously what emerged as
turmoil to Shehu is the gossip in online media about a supposed rift between
the EFCC chair, Lamorde and the Secretary to the Commission, Emmanuel
Adegboyega Aremo. The EFCC has refused to respond to the gossips because they
are unfounded.
But the Commission is
constrained to respond in the interest of members of the public who may have
been misled into believing the inanities and outright fabrications as
representation of the state of affair in the EFCC. More importantly, this
rebuttal is intended to forestall the objective of the authors of the satanic
article which is to create disaffection among the staff and management of the
Commission and distract it from its primary mandate of fighting corruption,
especially at this delicate moment in the political life of our nation.
For
the avoidance of doubt, there is no truth whatsoever in the allusion to imaginary
rift between the two most senior officers of the agency: the Executive
Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde and the Secretary to the Commission, Emmanuel
Adegboyega Aremo.
Both officers enjoy harmonious working relationship which is
reflected in the commendable performance of the Commission in recent time. They
also have no marked differences in terms of the direction and vision of the
agency. Those who seek to drive a wedge between them have ulterior motives that
are far from altruistic.
The
attempt to dress Aremo in the borrowed garb of chief advocate for employee
interest and Lamorde as a taskmaster who is insensitive to staff welfare
is uncharitable.
According to the authors of the article, “The EFCC Secretary
has been battling the Management of the Commission, especially the Executive
Chairman and the Director of Finance and Account on issues of unpaid allowances
and welfare. The Secretary, Mr. Aremo Emmanuel Adegboyega has refused going
with them for Budget defence, arguing that until the Management pay staff their
allowances. So they thought he was in need of money, they now credited his
account with his own 25 percent of the allowance.”
This is complete bunkum.
Aremo was present at the budget defence before both chambers of the National
Assembly. Indeed, when the Commission appeared before the Senate Committee on
Drugs, Financial Crimes and Anticorruption, Lamorde invited him to respond to a
question that a member of the Committee asked on the matter of appeal against
the injunction secured by a former governor of River State, that has more
or less conferred on him immunity from investigation. Does this convey the
situation of a man who was so nonplussed about employees’ mistreatment that he
revolted by refusing to join the budget defence team?
Again, though the
Commission is proud of Aremo’s pedigree as a lawyer, it will be immodest to
accept the title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, which the hack writer
awarded the Secretary to the Commission. He is not a senior advocate and will
wait to earn his stripes in God’s appointed time.
The lie about him being an
SAN, invariably exposes as another lie, the claim that he publicly exclaimed
that he had been so comfortable as a senior advocate to be bought over by a
sudden payment of 25 percent allowance into his account. What was the “allowance”
meant for, that Aremo supposedly asked them to come and take away their money?
The narration is so
infantile that it exposes the state of mind of the author. It is inconceivable
that an occupant of the exalted office of Secretary to the Commission will use
the indecorous language ascribed to Aremo in the article. He was said to have
been so nonplussed about the so called 25 percent payment that he said, “they
should come and remove their money from his account”. Haba! In any case, it
serves no use to dwell on this hogwash as there was no such payment in the
first place.
Any reasonable employee of
the EFCC knows that in this era of electronic payment where public sector
accounting is done under the GIFMIS platform, it is not possible to pay slush
allowance or any money for that matter to any staff, person or organisation
without justification.
Obviously, the allusion to
25 percent allowance payment to Aremo is to further demonize Lamorde as
attempting to bribe Aremo into acquiescence in his supposed vigorous activism
for workers’ interest. In plain language, it was a bribe to keep Aremo silent!
This is the height of mischief, intended to incite staff of the agency to
mutiny over imaginary allowances thought to be deliberately withheld by
management. No such exist. Indeed it is ludicrous that anyone would be
clamouring for some fat allowances in this era of dwindling resources, when
many agencies of government are battling to pay staff salaries.
Any staff who wants to be
fair to Lamorde would acknowledge the efforts he has made to improve staff
welfare since he took the reins. Apart from maintaining the existing allowances
in the consolidated salary structure of the Commission, he has introduced staff
canteens in most of the offices of the Commission where employees eat decent
but subsidized meals.
A housing scheme is also being implemented that offers
employees the opportunity to own houses and pay over a specified period. Staff
buses are also servicing some routes in the FCT, easing transportation of staff
to and from the office. He also organized the first awards and rewards
ceremony to celebrate staff in Commission’s history.
These are hardly the
imprimatur of a task master!
The claims of
insubordination to, or is it usurpation of the powers of the Secretary to the
Commission by a so-called female Head of Human Resources, is not only fictional
but exposes the ignorance of the authors about administrative procedures in the
Commission. The EFCC is not an arbitrary organisation as there are established
rules and procedures governing its operations, and these include the
recruitment, discipline and promotion of staff.
These rules which are not
the creation of Lamorde, are clearly enunciated in the Staff Regulations and
communicated to every staff of the Commission at the point of entry. The Human
Resource Unit also regularly amplifies these rules through memos.
Every staff
of the Commission knows the consequences of failing confirmation or promotion
examinations after the prescribed attempts. If staff take promotion
examination, it is the duty of the Head Human Resources to collate the result
for management. So what is the crime in performing this duty?
But, decision regarding
appointment, promotion and discipline of staff is handled by an Appointment,
Promotion and Discipline Committee which is headed by the Secretary to the
Commission, drawing membership from the cadre of Directors of the Commission.
So it is inconceivable that the Head of Human Resources will override the Committee.
There is no evidence of such and we challenge the authors of this fiction to
produce the evidence. There is also no evidence of the Commission violating the
Federal Character principle in its recruitment. All recruitment by the EFCC is
subjected to clearance by the Federal Character Commission. If any state has
overshot its quota the Commission in better placed to determine that and so far
there is no evidence that the EFCC under Lamorde has been accused of not
reflecting this principle of national spread in the recruitment that have taken
place in the last few years.
Nevertheless, it is
important to state here that the Commission will not bend the rule to
accommodate staff who fall below the approved minimum standards and the resort
to blackmail will not help such cases, if there are.
The fixation about police
officers making money in EFCC tended to portray the Commission as a money
spinning agency where people get rich quick. If that were the case, why will
any staff complain about allowance or welfare? We all should be “making
millions” too. The truth is that the EFCC operates a zero tolerance for
corruption and officers who compromise in the course of the duties regardless
of whether they are regular or seconded staff are subjected to the disciplinary
process.
Indeed, Lamorde, created a
Department of Internal Affairs that polices staff of the agency to ensure they
uphold the Commission’s core values of integrity and professionalism. Those who
have fallen short have been dealt with. In doing this the Commission applies
the same rule. There are no two set of rules for EFCC staff.
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