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| Ibrahim Lamorde |
Civil society organisations on Tuesday barricaded the headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Abuja, calling for the sacking of its chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Larmode.
The CSOs, under the aegis of Coalition of Civil Liberties and Equity, besieged the Abuja office of EFCC, alleging that the commission had been compromised by a powerful cabal, made up of politicians and others.
It submitted that such an agency could not tackle corruption.
The coalition believed that for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to successfully tackle corruption in Nigeria, there was the need to sack Lamorde, who they described as “a clog in the wheels of progress.”
But the spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, described the protesters as a group which wanted to mislead Nigerians and distract the agency.
He said, “My sincere advice to Nigerians is to ignore this so-called CSOs. We should not allow a group of misguided elements to assault our collective sensibilities with a choreographed protest paid for by corrupt persons being prosecuted by the EFCC.”
Some of the placards carried by the protesters read, “Sack Lamorde now”, “cabals have hijacked EFCC”, “Buhari, merge EFCC, ICPC now”, and “Lamorde has been compromised” among others.
Leader of the protesters and National Publicity Secretary of CCLE, Mr. Stanley Onukwufor, expressed disappointment with what he alleged was happening in the EFCC.
He said, “We cannot take it again. EFCC ought to be a good agency. It did well in the past and prosecuted corrupt people. But it has turned into something else. So many things have happened. Things have gone wrong. We have a President, who wants change and wants things turned around.
“We are out to let Nigerians know that we want change in EFCC. The only thing EFCC does is to arrest little thieves. What about the former governors who looted the treasuries of their respective states? Why is EFCC not prosecuting them?
“Most of these politicians are known to be corrupt. EFCC takes some of them to court and that is where everything ends. Lamorde must go in order to bring change in EFCC.”
