The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has disowned the anti-corruption ambassador title bestowed on Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu on Tuesday.
The EFCC’s National Assembly Liaison Officer, Sulaiman Bakari, yesterday reportedly decorated Mr. Ekweremadu as an ambassador of the anti-graft agency.
Apparently irked by the development, the EFCC on Wednesday disowned Bakari, saying he acted on his own as the commission is not in the business of conferring awards or honors on individuals or politicians for that matter.
The spokesperson for the anti-graft agency, Wilson Uwujaren, said: “The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has been drawn to some reports in the print and online media, on April 20, 2016 claiming that the anti-graft agency has decorated the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, as ‘Anti-Corruption Ambassador’.
“According to a statement issued to the Press by the Special Adviser to the Deputy Senate President, Uche Anichukwu, the purported decoration, was carried out by the EFCC National Assembly Liaison Officer, Suleiman Bakari who was quoted to have said: ‘On behalf of my acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu and the entire management and staff of the EFCC, decorate you as an Anti-Corruption Ambassador and formally present this frame, as a token of our appreciation to your person and office, and as a symbol of the institutional partnership between the EFCC and the National Assembly’.
The spokesman continued: “The EFCC totally dissociates itself from the purported action of Sulaiman Bakari as he acted entirely on his own.
“He clearly acted outside his brief as a liaison officer as the management of the commission at no tome mandated him to decorate Ekweremadu or any officer of the National Assembly as ‘Anti-Corruption Ambassador’.
“The statutory mandate of the EFCC is the investigation and prosecution of all economic and financial crimes cases, which does not include the decoration of individuals as anti-corruption ambassadors”.
The commission, Mr. Uwujaren maintained, is not in the habit of awarding titles to individuals. “And those enamored of titles know the quarters to approach for such honors, not the EFCC”.
He, therefore, urged members of the public and stakeholders in the fight against corruption to disregard the “so-called decoration”.
