EFCC should make public outcome of investigation on Gwarzo – Rights Group

Shina Loremikan

Shina Loremikan

Shina Loremikan

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

Rights group, Campaign Against Impunity in Nigeria, CAIN, has demanded that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, quickly make public the outcome of its ongoing investigation into the activities of the suspended Director General, Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, Mournir Gwarzo.

Convener, Campaign Against Impunity in Nigeria, Shina Loremikan, at a news conference on Thursday lamented the way the issue of Gwarzo was being handled by anti-corruption agencies.

Loremikan said the EFCC must act now because the body was in possession of all supporting documents on the allegations “which are also in our disposal.

He said Gwarzo’s alleged payment of N104.8 million to himself as severance package while still in office represented a brazen disregard to the standing rule in the civil service which provided that severance benefit could only be paid to an employee who ha concluded his or her service and had been disengaged from service and not to an employee who had merely been promoted within the commission.

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“Considering the likelihood that a lot more acts of impunity may have been committed unchecked under the arrangement in which Mr. Gwarzo functioned as the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission without checks from a board, the Campaign Against Impunity in Nigeria calls on the Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun to order a thorough audit of the finances of the commission.

“We also urge the minister to stand firm and not buckle under any pressure by the campaign of impunity being sponsored by Mr. Gwarzo against her person. The entire process smells of an attempt to cover impunity with blackmail.

“We therefore demand that Mrs Kemi Adeosun should make public the report of the Administrative Panel put in place to investigate the allegations against Gwarzo. She should also direct her office to forward the report to the EFCC and ICPC,” he said.

Loremikan added that President Muhammadu Buhari should take immediate steps to constitute a board for the SEC as provided for in the extant laws establishing the commission, saying that the board, was to, among others, ensure that no Director General of the commission could become a law unto himself.

“The Campaign Against Impunity in Nigeria also urge th two anti-corruption agencies that have been petitioned on the matter to quickly agree among themselves on which of them is to actually investigate, arrest and prosecute Mr. Mournir Gwarzo, he stated.

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