Group Questions FG’s Corruption Fight after N13.3bn Discovery

David-Chyddy Eleke The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Inter Society has called to question the fight against corruption by the federal government.

The group called on the federal government to account for the monies so far recovered as government cannot claim to be fighting corruption whereas monies recovered cannot be accounted for.

According to a statement by the Chairman of its Board of Trustees (BoT), Emeka Umeagbalasi, “Nigerians want to know about the discovery of over N13.3billion domiciled in foreign currencies including United States dollars, British pounds and naira notes at a high rising building in Ikoyi, Lagos State.

“Not long ago, on February 3, 2017, officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) claimed that they discovered and recovered another mysterious sum of $9.8million domiciled in dollars and pounds. The discovery and recovery, according to EFCC, were made in a house located in Kaduna State belonging to a former Managing Director of NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu.

“Critics also alleged that the said former NNPC managing director is presently having some political differences with the incumbent Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai, possibly over next governorship poll in the state.

“As if these are not enough, the EFCC has illicitly embarked on further mysterious cash discovery jamboree by invading markets and other private business outlets, confiscating cash sums belonging to some innocent business operators. These include N49million it claimed to have discovered at the Kaduna airport on March 14, 2017; N448million confiscated at a Lagos Bureau de Change plaza on April 7, 2017, and another N250million confiscated inside a shop located at Balogun Market in Lagos.

“The legal basis and intents of these operations as well as their genuineness have remained sketchy, shoddy, blatant, brazen and condemnable. In crime, guilty act (actus reus) can never secure competent investigation, prosecution, conviction and sentencing except it is combined with guilty mind (mens rea).

“Till date, and as we write, the generality of Nigerians do not know the whereabouts of all the monies that the DSS, EFCC and the federal government claimed falsely or otherwise to have recovered since the mysterious cash discovery and recovery jamboree was started by the DSS in October 2016.

“Whether such mysterious cash actually and genuinely exists or were arranged and periodically planted to frame up regime enemies and falsely shore up the so-called federal government’s anti-corruption crusade have totally remained outside the collective or public knowledge.”