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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has commenced an investigation into a trending audio tape alleging that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, influences corruption cases.
In the tape, an operative of the anti-graft agency, Mohammed Idris, accused the justice minister of compromising graft cases.
“Malami now controls the EFCC. The commission is in his hands. Once Malami speaks, the account will be unfrozen. They are unfreezing suspects’ accounts, including the big cases,” EFCC operative was heard saying in one of the multiple audio recordings obtained by Daily Nigerian.
But the EFCC in a statement on its verified Facebook page on Thursday said it would activate its internal mechanism to deal with the issues arising therefrom.
“Without prejudice to the outcome of the investigation, snippets of the audio recording clearly showed an abysmally compromised officer dropping names to ingratiate his benefactor, a relative of a crime suspect,” the statement read.
“By the alleged action, the said officer is no more than a corrupt fifth columnist with scant regard for the values of the commission.
“The action is contemptuous of the established Standard Operating Procedure of the EFCC. Such professional indiscretion has no place in the new EFCC.
“The commission encourages citizens who encounter any such unprofessional conduct by personnel of the EFCC to report to the commission in support of our quest to build a better agency.”
“Reporting such conducts has been made easy by the Eagle Eye App, a financial crime reporting application which was launched earlier in the year,” Uwujaren further stated.
According to the EFCC, its operations were guided by established professional precepts “which do not support the kind of discretion that could allow for manipulation by external actors.”