The presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar,
has revealed that he gave the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
N300million, when it was launched in 2004.
Atiku declared this on The Candidate, a
presidential town hall conversation, that
was aired on The Nigerian Television
Authority (NTA) on Wednesday night.
The former vice-president was responding
to a question, on how he would make the
anti-graft agency independent and able to
discharge its duties on time without
preferential treatment.
According to Atiku, the EFCC had no
budgetary allocation to begin operation
when it was launched.
“My quarrel with the judicial system is that
there is too much delay. If we can shorten
the delay, so that justice is seen to be
meted out immediately, better for us.
“The problem is the legislation and the
procedure being adopted by the judiciary.
The cases we initiated in our
administration are still in court. Now, where
is the justice?
“When we set up the EFCC, I personally
brought the first draft of the regulation
from Brazil and it was based on that draft
that the EFCC legislation was drafted.
“When it was finally passed by the national
assembly, EFCC did not even have the
money in the budget to start operation. I
borrowed them N300m from the
privatisation proceeds and said ‘you better
get to work’.
“The following year when there was
budgetary allocations, they repaid the
money. Most of the convictions that we
are hearing today were cases that we
started in our administration,†he said.
Source:
dailypost.ng/2019/01/31/atiku-
reveals-gave-efcc-n300m/
