INVESTIGATIONS may actually have been initiated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) into the eight-year rule of immediate past President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Indication to this effect came from the Commission’s Head, General Investigations, Mr. Sanda Umaru, in Lagos yesterday.
Umaru spoke when protesting anti-graft civil society groups, under the aegis of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), stormed the EFCC office on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi Office in Lagos.
Specifically making reference to the last administration, the leader of the CACOL, Debo Adeniran, said all the revelations that have indicted the administration demand that Obasanjo be called to question.
“Obasanjo has many questions to answer and we thought EFCC should have risen up to this task even before we started this protest.
“Talk of the scandal in the energy sector where a lot of money has been discovered siphoned without any improvement in the sector but rather, people are suffering, industries are getting paralysed and Nigerians are passing through an untold hardship.
“Specifically, Obasanjo was accused of having wasted $10 billion on the power sector by President Umaru Yar’Adua. The Speaker, House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, put the cost of waste at $16 billion while the on-going probe by the Elumelu-panel has confirmed more than $13 billion waste in the sector so far.
“Why on earth should the chief accounting officer of that administration of waste be exempted from giving evidence on where the money went?
“Prof. Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke, Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), said that Obasanjo forced her to head TRANSCORP, a conglomerate, where Obasanjo acquired about 200 million shares”, he said.
Adeniran said allegations about the last administration appeared in exhaustive and they were enough to bring more people to book, including the head.
He advised the EFCC to do its work in such a way that corruption would not be in governance any more.
He also called on Yar’Adua to be sincere in all the corrective measures he has been undertaking.
Responding, Umaru said “we are fighting the same course. The truth about the matter is that we are on that issue (probing Obasanjo) at the moment. We want everyone to know that we are on it and definitely we will get to where we are going.”
Umaru however noted that the difference between the EFCC and CACOL was that while CACOL wanted investigation to be conducted rapidly into the issue, the EFCC by the nature of its job needed to be thorough, which made it appear slow, he said.
He continued: “You might not like the pace at which we are going in investigating Obasanjo. Ours is to ensure that we do things thoroughly. In so doing, we must not only display prudence, but we must be able to display professionalism so as to ensure that everything we do is in line with the scheme of things.
“You people are in a hurry, but we are telling you that we are on it and we will get to where we are going.”
The EFCC official assured Nigerians that very soon, results of the commission’s investigation into the activities of the former administration, including its key players, would be made public.
“You might want it now, but we assure you that you will get results, “he said.
Umaru commended the efforts and method adopted by CACOL in its agitation for the probe of the former president, saying that they were fighting for the good of the nation.
While addressing the EFCC, Adeniran said that his group would not be satisfied if the House Committee on Power and Steel failed to compel Obasanjo to testify before it in the on-going probe into how his government spent about $16 billion without improvements in the sector.
Adeniran said: “Such preferential treatment will not only rubbish whatever good intention that might have informed the effort of Ndudi Elumelu-led panel, it will also paint the House as another pack of opportunistic rent-seekers.”
The group also urged EFCC to take the battle against graft to the doorstep of former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Specifically, the group called for the probe of former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and her Education counterpart, Oby Ezekwesili.
He said: “This group, including some serving governors, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and even Madam ‘Due Process’ herself, Oby Ezekwesili, should be made to answer hard questions.”
Other groups affiliated to CACOL are Campaign for Genuine Democracy and Zero Corruption.