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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has laughed off assault allegation made against its personnel by a Nollywood actress, Helena Duru.
How it happened: In a video that has now gone viral online, the actress showed her bruised body, claiming that she had been assaulted by agents of the anti-graft commission.
Narrating her ordeal in the said video posted on her Instagram page, Duru said EFCC operatives from the Enugu Zonal Command broke into her apartment late at night and took turns in beating her.
Duru's post partly read: "Exactly 02:53 I heard a noise in my compound, then I gently came out at my balcony to peep what it was, I saw some men but couldn’t identify them as it was still dark. When they saw me, they asked me to come down and open the staircase door which I ignored and hid. They had flashlights. They kept insisting I open the staircase door. I later went inside my house.
“A few minutes on, I heard a boy screaming and crying for help. Then my neighbour called me to alert me. I told her I was awake, We both came out from our balconies ( She lives on the first floor) the men started shouting at us that we should go in or open the staircase gate. The next thing we heard they started damaging the staircase door and gained access. I went inside my room and locked the door. Two men climbed into my flat, damaged my two doors, gained access into my house and started beating me....."
EFCC reacts: However, reacting to the actress' claim, the EFCC in a statement posted on its official Instagram page rubbished the allegation.
The agency described Duru's accusation as "False and misleading" referring to her as "an upcoming actress, a mere publicity- seeking player, with a poorly- scripted claim."
The EFCC also picked holes in her narration, wondering why she waited two months after the 'incident' before coming to the public.
Duru had mentioned names of five officers who attacked her but the anti-graft agency countered that by saying that its men don't wear name-tags.
The EFCC statement: “False and Misleading Video in Circulation on EFCC Operations. The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has been drawn to an online video trending on Instagram, from the handle of a certain “@iamhelenaduru”, a self-styled actress, purporting, quite mischievously, an assault by operatives of the Commission.
“Checks by the Commission, however, flagged Helen Aduru, an upcoming actress, as a mere publicity-seeking player, with a poorly- scripted claim that has fallen flat in the face of unassailable facts available to the Commission.”
The agency further stated, “In her script, she was quick to include five names of officers she claimed came from the Cybercrime Section of the Enugu Command of the Commission. Characteristically, EFCC’s officers don’t wear name tags nor move around with bulldozer-shaped equipment to pull down security doors.
“Aduru claimed, rather strangely, that she was assisted by a little boy, to a Police Station at 3:44 am but met the station shut. It is important to note that Police Stations are not civil service ministries that “close” in the evening. Even more preposterous is the fact that she never went back, at daybreak, to lodge a complaint.
“More poignantly untenable is the fact that her purported assault of July 21, 2022, which has not been logged nearly two months later at the Police Station, is only being brought to public glare on September 2, 2022!! Such a scene could only stand in a typical Nollywood fiction series.
“Such claims by Aduru, like all other stranger-than-fiction, click-baiting, sympathy-seeking ploys, do not merit a response but for the need to avoid ‘silence is acquiescence’ stance of mischief makers. Deeper checks on the matter only showed that certain blackmailers could be bandying some known names in the Enugu Zonal Command to settle some scores.”