EFCC PROTECTING CORRUPT POLITICIANS

[rasputinn]

  After reading the following article by Solana Olumense,my mood immediately became pensive because it's very obvious amongst other things that Mrs Farida Waziri was just planted at the EFCC to shield her corrupt benefactors from justice,please read through and let me know what you think .   
                                            October, National Hypocrisy Month


OCTOBER is our national birth month. Our 48th anniversary came around last month, about 30 days ago. I would like to move the following motion: That October be adopted as National Hypocrisy Month.

For most of last month, I argued in this column that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) had deliberately sabotaged the statute by which it was created by failing to file the Commission's annual report. I called for its chairperson, Mrs. Farida Waziri, to be fired.

Mrs. Waziri did not resign. She was not fired. In fact, she got up to argue that the law be amended to eliminate the immunity being enjoyed by chiefs of state. I agree with Mrs. Waziri on this point; that immunity should never have existed in the first place.

But it seems to me that she is herself enjoying the privileges of the National Hypocrisy month. Here is the chairperson of the EFCC who has refused to conform with the law that brought her to office by sending the annual report, her first, to the National Assembly. Brushing such an inconvenience aside, she wants even greater authority. Authority without responsibility. Are some outlaws better than other outlaws?

Yes, I know that the EFCC's Femi Babafemi has claims that not only am I mistaken in demanding the 2008 Report, but that the 2007 Report has been submitted to the National Assembly. I have tried to obtain the report, but failed. I know journalists that have tried to obtain it, including from Mr. Babafemi, and also failed.

In the spirit of National Hypocrisy month, I do not know of any member of the National Assembly that has asked the EFCC for the report. Not one, even though Mrs. Waziri met with many of them during the month. This is perfectly understandable in the context of National Hypocrisy month. I guess the members of the Assembly would argue that they make the law, which makes them superior to it. They do not have to be outraged even when the law is broken over their heads.

In the context of the National Hypocrisy Month, it is also understandable that President Umaru Yar'Adua, who last week fired 20 Ministers allegedly for non-performance, finds no contradiction in pretending he has no interest in whether the EFCC meets this statutory requirement or not.

All of this is particularly interesting when you consider that, during the same month, Mrs. Waziri claimed she could not prosecute 31 former governors because their case files were either "distorted or missing." She said that our former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has no case to answer because no petitions had been filed against him, a claim we have since proved to be empty.

She has since taken half a hesitant step back from those statements, but she has not confirmed she is prosecuting anyone. She simply wants the additional authority to prosecute five governors; with those, she has no strings, unlike the former ones, some of whom she is known to have done business with.

At the Federal Ministry of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, with the support of President Yar'Adua, is using federal resources to help James Ibori to avoid justice in England. He is telling the court that some of the evidence that can send the former Delta State governor to jail and deny him his loot is inadmissible because it was obtained from the EFCC without his permission. You would be outraged, if you were a Nigerian, who cares about people like Mr. Ibori getting what they truly deserve... unless you considered the matter in the context of National Hypocrisy Month.

In October, the State Security Service (SSS), under the direction of the president, returned to its old bad habits, detaining journalists and commentators who do not sing the party song. Among others, they picked up Jonathan Elendu of Elendureports and Emmanuel Emeke Asiwe of Huhuonline, and sent them to detention without being charged. Some operatives said Mr. Elendu was guilty of writing stories for SaharaReporters, the unwavering national crusaders I celebrated in this column on August 1. Mr. Elendu does no work for SaharaReporters.

Our National Hypocrisy Month should think about the army of Senior Advocates of Nigeria who convey so much concern during the day about what is wrong with Nigeria, but are falling over each other at night for the privilege of "defending" the thieves that looted Nigeria blind. During National Hypocrisy Month as they swim in the mud that cannot be washed off, these lawyers ought to be inducted into the National Hypocrisy Hall of Infamy.

Let us celebrate October. It is our month, the one when we hug Nigeria warmly from the front, and coldly plunge in our knives at the back.

http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/editorial_opinion/article03//indexn2_html?pdate=021108&ptitle=October,%20National%20Hypocrisy%20Month

[rasputinn]

And this by Okey Ndibe

Farida Waziri’s job as undertaker By Okey Ndibe

At the very minimum, Mrs. Farida Waziri should cease parading herself as the chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). She should also stop collecting the salary as well allowances pertaining to her office. More than that, she ought to refund the sums already paid to her to assume the challenge of fighting financial crimes.

Last week, Mrs. Waziri basically confessed that she lacks the will, skill and desire to prosecute the war against graft and sundry financial crimes. She also served notice that she’s presiding over an agency that has sabotaged the anti-graft crusade.

There’s no question that, in some quarters, Mrs. Waziri is viewed as a “hero,� a woman doing a “fantastic� job. A Yar’Adua impostor-regime that lacks the moral spine or ethical capital to stare down corruption has reason to hail this woman who is slowly, surely re-making the EFCC into a vendor of farce and comedy. There’s Obasanjo, a man who set his moral bar so low that he now lives under the blissful illusion that history is about to transport him to the pedestal of greatness. Then there are the indicted governors who, comforted by Waziri’s assurance, are sleeping a little better now. Soon their lawyers may head for courts and petition that their cases be thrown out. And why not? After all, the woman who should know has exonerated them. She has proclaimed that they stole nothing; that their prosecution was done, in the first place, out of malice.

To be sure, this Wazirian maneuver is bizarre but hardly surprising. From the outset, some of us suspected (and predicted) that Waziri’s primary task as chair of the EFCC was to emasculate and then oversee the folding up of the agency. When she grandly told the panel that screened her that she was fully willing to step on big toes, the words rang hollow. It seemed to me, in fact, that she meant the collective big toes of dispossessed Nigerians. Those who stood behind her strange appointment to head the agency seemed driven by one wish, and one wish alone: that she would accelerate the demise of the EFCC. Last week, she took a giant step towards realizing their expectation.

She startled Nigerians with claims unbecoming of somebody who draws a salary for allegedly fighting crime. First, she stated that the agency has no case against former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Who does she think she’s kidding? Unless she was on vacation in Neptune during the House of Representatives’ hearing on the power sector; unless she slumbered in outer space while witness after witness detailed how Obasanjo bypassed due process to authorize huge payments to foreign and indigenous contractors for projects that were not executed, and probably were never meant to be executed, she would not have had the effrontery to say there’s no case against the former president.

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Then, in an equally scandalous move, Mrs. Waziri “revealed� that the EFCC’s files on thirty-one former state governors contained little or no damning information. In effect, the EFCC chair let Nigerians know that the indictment of the thirty plus ex-governors was nothing more than hype.

Of course, she craftily sidestepped some questions. Did the agency ever gather the information, and if so, was it stolen? If the former was the case, then what happened to the information? If the latter, then she must tell Nigerians at what point the files were raided and emptied of documents and other evidence. At any rate, Waziri was put in at EFCC ostensibly to lead the charge in investigating quick-fingered thieves who paraded themselves as leaders. If she lacks the ability to unearth evidence of corruption against public officials who daily parade their loot in public, then it amounts to a confession of incompetence. It follows that she has no business occupying the space she does as EFCC chair.

But let’s tell ourselves the truth: Waziri is doing a “terrific� job for her sponsors – among them, some of the governors under investigation or indictment for money laundering and other forms of abuse of public trust. I suspect she must have received calls from a lot of these former or current public officials patting her on the back for a job excellently done.

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It is no secret that former Governor James Ibori of Delta and Bukola Saraki, current Kwara governor, were part of a coalition of former and serving governors who sponsored Waziri’s headship of the EFCC. Months before Mr. Umaru Yar’Adua finally appointed her, Saharareporters.com had disclosed that a number of indicted politicians were lobbying Yar’Adua to put her forward. The website also reported – and backed it up with documentation – that Waziri had in the past intervened with the anti-corruption agency on behalf of at least one indicted ex-governor.

Is it conceivable that these embattled politicians who facilitated Waziri’s appointment considered her a tough, sinewy prosecutor who will pursue their prosecution with renewed vigor and zeal? Were her sponsors remorseful felons who wanted a woman capable of seeing to it that they were sanctioned harshly? What does it say about Nigeria that it is a country where men charged with the grave crime of manipulating their offices for personal financial gain are permitted to choose the person who will investigate and prosecute them?

If Nigeria took its anti-corruption crusade with a modicum of seriousness, then it should have occurred to Yar’Adua as well as members of the National Assembly that Waziri was one person who should never have been recruited to captain the EFCC. Quite apart from her coziness with some of the people she was supposed to give hell for their alleged illicit self-enrichment, her record as a crime buster was far from impressive. In appointing her to lead the EFCC, Yar’Adua hung out a loud sign, to Nigerians and the rest of the world, that the fight against corruption had gone from the era of selectivity into that of absurd comedy.

Let’s be clear: Waziri’s predecessor, Nuhu Ribadu, was far from an exemplary head of the EFCC. Under his leadership, the agency sometimes came across as part of Obasanjo’s vindictive apparatus for witch-hunting those who stood in the way of his self-perpetuating agenda. Ribadu seemed willfully blind to the fabled corruption enacted in Rivers State under the watch of Peter Odili. Odili, a self-styled golden governor who, since leaving office, has kept away from Port Harcourt, was in Obasanjo’s graces – and so not to be touched. Ribadu also refused to see the billions of naira that Obasanjo used in a (thankfully) futile gambit to buy a third term – even if it meant raping the constitution in the process.

After Yar’Adua’s installation as occupant of Aso Rock, many of his cohorts began to make the case that Ribadu’s style of fighting corruption was selective. That argument, while unimpeachable, did not justify gutting the EFCC. If anything, it provided an opportunity for Michael Aondoakaa, Yar’Adua’s attorney general – if he was serious-minded – to begin the prosecution of those that Ribadu had chosen to spare.

At any rate, to remove Ribadu and replace him with a woman of Waziri’s deficits was a mark of Yar’Adua’s poor political judgment. With Waziri running the show, the EFCC has become a “show.� At least Ribadu brought a measure of passion to the cause of fighting corruption. Mrs. Waziri has brought, on the other hand, a commitment to turning herself into a fashionable and ostentatious figure. Ribadu successfully prosecuted Diepreye Alamieseigha and Tafa Balogun. Forget that these two men received what amounted to light slaps on the wrists. But what has Mrs. Waziri got to show for her salary and allowances? Only this: to tell Nigerians that she has no clue how to establish that a single politician stole anything from the public coffers. It’s a scandal and a shame!

If the agency beat a slight retreat from what Mrs. Waziri told the legislature, it was merely because of the groundswell of criticism from every sector of Nigeria. Does it mean that the EFCC is back to the work of fighting corruption? My hunch is that, as you read this, Mrs. Waziri is thinking up fresh ideas for making the agency disappear altogether. Nothing less would satisfy those who her big-toed sponsors.

http://www.saharareporters.com/columnokn4.php

[rasputinn]

Whatever happened to the case files of the "allegedly" corrupt governors

[rasputinn]

Leaders of the western world too are aware of this

Double Standards Hamper Corruption Fight – German President
 
German President, Horst Kohler,  yesterday blamed both Africa and Europe for using political and trade double standards to hamper the fight against corruption and development, calling on both sides to apply change.
He also called for Africans to begin to demand to know the destination of illegal capital flight from Africa and who and what institutions are in charge of keeping such funds.
He stressed that in the context of the global talks for a new financial international order , knowing the destination will end the regime of rhetorics of fairness and common global practice.
The German President was in company of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the Ghanaian Vice President, Aliu Mahama and the President of ECOWAS , Mohammed Ibn Chambas.
While addressing a press conference at the end of the 4th Partnership for Africa Forum , co-hosted by both the German and Nigerian governments, the German president also said the forum had agreed on the criminalisation of the theft of crude oil, diamond and other mineral and natural resources which is contributing to the impoverishment of the continent.
He said the forum with the theme: "Barriers to partnership - and how to overcome them", has shown the stakeholders that both Europe and Africa are  interested in each other’s partnership, stressing that entering into cooperation was the only alternative to foster beneficial relationships.
Kohler lamented that while Europe uses double standards in the field of trade, Africa also uses double standards that apply in the continent as well, because of insufficiently developed ability or willingness to criticise one another among the African countries.


http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=127672

[rasputinn]

                                             EFCC seeks arrest of Ibori’s associate

 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Tuesday urged Justice Mohammed Shuaibu of the Federal High Court in Kaduna to issue a bench warrant against Ms. Udoamaka Okoronkwo.

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Photo file
Chief James Ibori

Okoronkwo, who is currently standing trial for money laundering with the former Delta State Governor, Mr. James Ibori, was reportedly arrested in France in connection with the investigations into the alleged money laundering involving Ibori in London.

EFCC’s lawyer, Mr. Adebisi Adeniyi, who made the request at the resumed hearing of the trial in Kaduna, said that the issuance of the bench warrant against the accused who was not in court had become imperative.

According to Adebisi, the accused had violated one of the terms of her bail conditions by travelling to France where the French police arrested her last month and later extradited her to the United Kingdom where she was currently being detained.

Opposing the EFCC’s request, the lawyer to both Ibori and Okoronkwo, Mr. Ade Okeaya, argued that it would be premature to take such an action.

Okeaya informed the court that they had already protested formally to the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation that the said arrest was an abuse of court process.

He said that a copy of the said protest letter had been forwarded to the court for the records.

Justice Shuaibu, however, said that since it was the first time the accused was absent from the trial, it would be a miscarriage of justice to issue a bench warrant against her.

The judge then adjourned the trial of the accused till January 14, 2009.

http://www.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art200811193242585

 :rotlmao: :rotlmao: :rotlmao:
These guys won't stop amusing me and making fools of themselves
Where were dey when she travelled out to France,if she had not been arrested there and extradited to be detained in the UK,would they have said anything,or do they think the Met police will be stupid to hand her over to them? :rotlmao: :rotlmao: :rotlmao:

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