The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has accused the National Assembly of not supporting the war against corruption in the country as expected.
Spokesman for the anti-graft agency, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, said this on Sunday during his appearance on a special programme on Channels Television.
Commenting on the passage of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) bill, Uwujaren asked Nigerians to be wary of the rationale behind the swift passage of the bill by the legislative.
He said: ”it is also very important for Nigerians to know that what is going on concerning the NFIU calls for concern. For the first time in the history of our country, we have a law that was passed within one week in the National Assembly.”
“This is a National Assembly that if we look back, we can recollect that that Assembly has never supported the fight against corruption as people would have expected but now, when the NFIU matter came, within a week a law was passed; that should raise suspicion.
“People think that in taking away the NFIU from the EFCC, they will be undermining the fight against corruption being spearheaded by the EFCC; that is the single motivation behind the speed with which this new law was passed,” he added.
With the allegation coming from the EFCC, it appears the purported feud between the commission and the lawmakers might not end in a short while.
Uwujaren further said separating the NFIU from the EFCC does not mean the anti-graft agency would be rendered inefficient.
He said: “NFIU bill remains the power of the EFCC. I think there is a misconception about what NFIU is and what is not about. People term to think that once you remove the NFIU from the EFCC, then the EFCC cannot do its work again; that is absolutely not correct.”
“The NFIU, yes, is relevant in collecting intelligence and analysing such intelligence and making it available to law enforcement agencies; but it does not mean that without the NFIU, the EFCC cannot function. EFCC can function; it was functioning before NFIU and even if NFIU is taken away, it will continue to function.”
