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EFCC Recovered $500 billion in Five Years

Nigeria Today
14th April '08

Nigeria's Anti-Corruption Body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), convicted 250 persons and recovered more than US$ 500 billion in cash and property in its five years of operation in the country. It quoted EFCC Acting Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde as saying over 1,000 cases were still pending while complaints remain at about 300 per day.

Lamorde was speaking at the launch of the Commemorative Anti-Corruption Stamps as part of celebrations marking the fifth anniversary of the EFCC in Nigeria's Federal capital, Abuja. He lamented that corruption had destroyed Nigeria's past, "and therefore must not be allowed to destroy the future", adding that Nigerians should support the activities of the Commission. He said "before the fight against corruption took the centre stage, the banking and broad financial community was a bizarre environment populated by fraudsters and fortune strippers."

Lamorde lamented that regulation (at that time) across the board was nothing but a huge joke. "The public management regime in the country and indeed the private sector was at their worst ethical states. In no time the world took notice and started treating us differently," he said.

Also speaking at the occasion, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption, Senator Sola Akinyede, said Nigerians should stand up against some elites especially those in the past generation who had failed the country because they did nothing but divert public fund meant for the development of Nigerians.

He added that the National Assembly would continue to support anti-graft agencie s in the country, saying that already the laws setting up the ICPC and EFCC was b eing revised to make them more efficient and effective. The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar III, said at the launch the EFCC had grown into a formidable and credible anti-graft agency which must be given all t he needed support.

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