Lorine Emenike
The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike has called on the Economic and Financial Crime Commission to fight crime within the ambit of the law.
Governor Wike made this statement during a solidarity walk to mark this year’s international anti-corruption day with the Organized by the South-South zone of EFCC in Port Harcourt.
He urged EFCC to support Rivers State government and fight corruption within the rule of law, ” as corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of the society”
Governor Wike promised to give EFCC another premises/ property to expand and aid its operations.
He called on public office holders especially political office holders and other agencies in the state to join the EFCC in the fight against corruption.
The EFCC south-south zonal director Abdul-Rasheed Basal in his address said the annual international anti-corruption day celebration was mapped by United Nation to sensitize citizens on the ease of corruption, ” which we agree cannot be overemphasized”
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Bawal said that the theme of this year’s anti-corruption day “zero tolerance for corruption for corruption in the maritime and transport sector”, is synonymous to what EFCC does.
He said “the history of the Port Harcourt zonal office of the EFCC is that of the EFCC’s effort in investigating illegal dealing in petroleum products, illegal oil bunkering, crude oil theft, economic sabotage among other related crimes in the maritime sector”
“All the crimes mentioned above can never be committed and benefit the criminals without them conspiring with the transport operators”
He, therefore, urged vessel owners, badges, trucks and vehicle owners to be law-abiding and obtain all relevant licenses from authorities and update same”
The EFCC south-south boss added that corruption is the pain of development, “so it is encouraging that the government of Rivers State, in general, is aligning to the fact that, it must do something about corruption, we are also happy to the fact that he mentioned it publicly that no member of the executive council that is corrupt will have a place in his cabinet”
“It is a welcome development and it is part of our preventive and deterrent measures that we are looking at, that no corrupt person in this country will hold any public office”
“EFCC is the creation of the law, there is no organization that I am aware that is working in line with the Nigerian law like the EFCC”
“We are prosecuting cases in law particularly in relation to our mandate more than any other organization in this country.
“We have 98-99% success of all the cases that we have taken to court and of cause what we are doing is very simple for us to identify the criminals that committed the crime and those who aided them. We don’t just bundle people to prison, we take them to court”
