NGF Chairman Threatens Showdown With EFCC
Among the battles that are confronting the Acting President is the pressure from by certain forces who are hell bent on removing the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu Mustapha from office owing to the refusal of the Senate to clear him, despite his renomination by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Magu's insistence to investigate several sitting Governors and top aides of the Mr. President seems to have pitched him against these supposedly sacred cows.
Magu's current travails is stemming from his expose on Abdulaziz Yari, Executive Governor of Zamfara state, who is also, Chairman of the Nigeria's Governors Forum, NGF.
Presently, the Zamfara state governor threatened a showdown with the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accusing him of having diverted part of Paris Club loan refunds.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum made the threat while speaking with journalists on Thursday in Abuja.
According to available reports, Abdulaziz Yari is accused of diverting N500m and $500,000 from the Paris Club refunds released by the Federal Government, in favour of the 36 states of the federation, to personal use.
Yari, during his press briefing, stated that he would formally write the Federal Government to complain about the antics of the commission’s Chairman, Ibrahim Magu against other governors.
He said; "I am going to write to the Federal Government that enough is enough; that either the EFCC does its work or we do a show down with it".
"While governors on the forum's platform were in support of Federal Government's stance against corruption, they were, however, opposed to the commission's style of fighting the menace".
The Zamfara governor therefore urged the EFCC to concentrate on the fight against corruption rather than the pursuit of personal vendetta.
Yari stressed that no governor would walk into any bank’s strong room in connivance with its officials, or deep his hands into public coffers as was being alleged by the Commission in some cases.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum said it was unfortunate that the EFCC, in most instances, acted on petitions sent to it without conducting proper investigation.
"You can’t just because somebody wrote a petition, then, you say you are working on it without doing your own due diligent investigation", he said.
Gov. Abdulaziz Yari, while speaking on project implementation in states said; “I believe EFCC does not have its own engineers to quantify the estimates to know what is exactly on ground".
"Project cost deferred from state to state because of their different geographical terrain", he said.
“A project that is done in Rivers for N2 million, in Zamfara, it will be about N150, 000".
“You cannot say the price of things in Rivers should be the same in Zamfara or somewhere else".
“The terrain is entirely different so is the cost and risk which should be taken into consideration".
Soeaking further, Governor Yari said if the Commission suspected that any state project was over-inflated, it should engage the services of a quantity surveyor to ascertain the truth position of thing.
"There is a procedure for every project to be executed by any governor before a contract is awarded".
“Like in Zamfara, we have finance and general purpose committee which is in charge of tender and some states have tender board where the work is initiated from".
“There is documentation, memo raised, approved by the council and finally assented to by the governor".
According to Abdulaziz Yari, governors were ready to support the Commission, adding, however, that things must be done properly in the course of fighting corruption in the country.
The Zamfara Governor advised the Commission to ensure proper investigation for effective fight against corruption in the country to have meaning.
(NAN)
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