Magu: ‘Salami panel’s wrong on EFCC headship recommendation’

The Global Forum for Accountability and Transparency (GFAT) has faulted the recommendation by the Justice Ayo Salami led Panel that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should henceforth be headed by a non-Police Officers.

The convener of the group, Joseph Ambakederimo, said Sunday in Abuja that such recommendation was a ploy to weaken the commission.

“For the headship of the EFCC to be a non-Police officer is to finally ground the EFCC a death kneels and this is counterproductive to the anti-corruption fight. The EFCC is a law enforcement agency, therefore for anyone to have recommended the headship to be a non-Police officer is deeply troubling,” Ambakederimo said.

He said that these recommendations were not part of the terms of reference of the Panel and that the anti-graft agency cannot carry out its functions effectively without the backing of the Police.

He also expressed concern that the recommendation was being pushed by those who did not mean well for President Muhammadu Buhari administration and its anti-corruption efforts.

“It is no surprise that the submission of the panel report on the investigation of the former Acting Chairman of the EFCC Ibrahim Magu to President Muhammad Buhari would draw flacks from many quarters due largely to the premeditated recommendations contained in the final report.

“Looking back to the appointment process and the shenanigans that greeted the nomination of Ibrahim Magu to the headship of the anti-graft agency would leave no one in doubt that certain forces were at play and working surreptitiously to undermine the foremost anti-graft agency in the country,” he said.

He said that one of the recommendations of the Salami Panel that non-Police personnel be appointed to head EFCC and also to inject more core personnel to the EFCC, show that there is more as to it as if some persons are at competition or at war with the Police.

He said, “The Police officers that trained the pioneer core staffs of the EFCC are still stagnated by way of promotion because promotion in the civil Service is based on availability of vacancies, it therefore not makes a reasonable argument as stated by the Salami report.”