Senator expresses surprise at EFCC’s denial of anti-corruption ambassadorship

The deputy senate president made the comment in a statement released by his media aide, Uche Anichukwu on Wednesday, April 20, 2016.

It reads:

We want to put it on record that the EFCC Liaison Officer to the National Assembly, Mr. Suleiman Bakari, and his team, applied for and subsequently paid a courtesy call on the Deputy President of the Senate in his Office on Tuesday, April 19, 2016.

Mr. Bakari, amongst other issues he raised, solicited the support of the Senate and National Assembly towards the anti-corruption crusade of the present administration, and even presented a frame with a bold picture of President Muhammadu Buhari, bearing the inscription: “If we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”.

Mr. Bakari also, on behalf of the Acting Chairman, management, and staff of the EFCC decorated Senator Ekweremadu as an Anti-Corruption Ambassador of the EFCC.

It is also a fact that the visit and decoration was captured in both pictures and video.

Taking cognisance of the command structure of the agency, we also wonder whether Mr. Bakari could have acted on his own or read from a prepared text without recourse to the Commission, which he represents, especially as the visit and decoration was never solicited for in the first place.

We leave the rest to discerning members of the public to read in-between the lines and make their own judgments. However, Ambassador or no Ambassador, the Deputy President of the Senate will not back down from his legislative efforts and advocacy as captured in his several public statements and lectures over the years.

He will continue to push for legal and institutional reforms such as Special Anti-Graft Courts; Security of tenure and financial autonomy for the EFCC and related agencies. Only such reforms would fast-track justice and insulate the anti-corruption agencies from external interference and self-reversals.

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