We’re investigating petitions against powerful politicians – EFCC Chair, Bawa
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is vetting petitions produced against top political actors in Nigeria.
The EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this revelation while speaking at the Ministerial Media Briefing which was put in place by the Presidential Communications Team in Abuja.
The Chairman revealed that the Petitions Vetting Desk/Committee of the agency were already looking into the petitions to confirm their credibility and substance.
While reacting to questions on whether any of the presidential flagbearers has been petitioned, the chairman reaffirmed that top political actors were on already on the list.
“On the question of if we received petitions against top politicians contesting for office, my question is, at this hour do you want to start inviting all the presidential candidates to come and make statements? The same media will say it’s politically motivated. So, we are not. We are working behind the scene in all the petitions we received to see those that have merits, so that’s why we are not politicising it.
“And that’s why we have what we call Petitions Vetting Desk/Committee made up of experienced officers from the legal department as well as those trained to investigate that will review these petitions to see whether they are in line with our own mandate before they will recommend whether they will be prosecuted by the EFCC.
“We have benchmark for it that we can follow, that guides us, you know, in terms of accepting or rejecting petitions, you know, as we also have a criteria which have even been publicised to guide petitioners on the requirements to make a petition to have merit. Hope this question is not politically motivated?”
“We are doing quite a lot on this. We are working with INEC and a lot of people but ultimately we want to work with Nigerians. They should know the implications of selling their votes or accepting that their votes should be bought by these individuals.
“We hope and pray that our modest effort will be able to curtail this issue of vote buying when it comes to the elections in February and March.”
Bawa reaffirmed that some top political actors are under close watch of the anti-graft agency.
“Certainly we are watching a lot of them and a lot of Nigerians have also provided us with information here and there and we are watching, you can also help us with any piece of information you have,” he appealed.
