HURIWA admonishes EFCC not to run down banks, religious bodies, others

Rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to stop its alleged regular practice of ascribing corrupt practices to banks, lawyers, religious bodies and other professional bodies.

HURIWA said the designation of members of these organisations as mostly corrupt as are being conveyed in the different public conversations of the head of the EFCC is capable of diminishing the credibility of these bodies in the eyes of members of the international community.

A statement by HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Sunday, said “It is disconcerting that each time the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) appears before a public rostrum to deliver lectures or talks beamed by television networks around the World, he often garnishes his talking points with direct accusations of members of such hallowed institutions such as organised religious groups, lawyers and bankers as harbingers or custodians of corrupt practices.

“This style of systematically and methodically running down the integrity of these bodies is damaging to these institutions and it is just the same as what some western governments do when they see every one bearing Nigeria’s green passport as been fantastically corrupt or roguish only because an insignificant numbers of our Nigerian citizens have been involved in one crime or the other”.

“HURIWA is begging the Chairman of the EFCC to stop this HOLIER-THAN-THOU attitude and stop running down different respected professional organisations. The EFCC can actually do so much and achieve a lot without antagonising the high esteem of professional bodies. The EFCC can have private meetings with heads of professional bodies to raise his views about involvement of some members of professional institutions in corrupt practices instead of using the publicly covered events to make such damaging generalised allegations.

“If the Chairman has evidence of involvement of any member of these or other professional bodies involved in corruption related offences, the EFCC should prosecute such a person as a suspect and not necessarily adopting a dangerous stereotype about certain organisations when in fact criminality isn’t domiciled within any identifiable groups but is a human factor.

” For instance, even within the EFCC are found some persons who were involved in corrupt practices. But the involvement of some EFCC staff in corruption is not to say that the entire EFCC is corrupt: far from it. Saying such is to dance around fallacy and inaccurate information which may even amount to misinformation.”

HURIWA recalled that recently the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede issued the warning on involvement of bankers in corruption when the management team of Moniepoint, led by its founder and Group CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda paid a courtesy visit to the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.