The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,EFCC has raised an alarm over a plot by a gang of highly placed forces to scuttle the nation's anti-graft war by destabilising the agency ahead of the 2011 elections. 

The Commission in a statement on Saturday December 18 said it is concerned that there has been a rise of late in the number of sponsored media reports either against the leadership or the work of the agency all in a bid to derail or distract it from its statutory responsibilities.

According to the statement " we have noted with concern the increasing number of spinned reports all lacking facts but founded on speculations being circulated to cause confusion as well as distraction in EFCC and ultimately derail the nation's anti-graft war.

"A clear example of such reports was published in Saturday Punch , December 182010  which details imaginary moves by the EFCC chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri to avert an alleged impending removal. With the exception of the names of individuals mentioned, the report is an embodiment of lies weaved together by a hatchet writer to satisfy his sponsor's self-serving expectations.

" We will like to state that the recent redeployment of some police officers in and out of the Commission was announced by the EFCC in a statement issued on Friday December 10 and adequately reported by the media the following day as against the misleading claim that it was announced by the Inspector General of Police. It is ridiculous that a report that took two weeks to investigate cannot recall any commendable achievement of the EFCC since Waziri took charge in 2007 as claimed by the writer

"Yet it is on record that Waziri took over as EFCC chairman in June 2008 and not 2007. It is public knowledge that no fewer than 100 convictions have been recorded by her leadership including cases over which some high profile persons like Chief Bode George, and Mrs Cecilia Ibru are presently serving jail terms, with funds and assets well over $6.5 billion recovered in the course of prosecution. This is in addition to over 1200 cases that have been taken to court within the same period.

"It is also strange that this report would claim that the EFCC chairman takes case files to President Jonathan to vet whereas the presidency and the Commission have on several occasions disputed this misleading impression being created to suggest that Mr President interferes in the workings of the agency.

"It should be noted that the EFCC is an agency of government set up by an Act of parliament and distinct from the Nigeria Police. As such, it will be absurd for any report to create the impression that the Commission is an appendage of the police

"We will like to state that the leadership of the Commission is not under any pressure to avert an imaginary removal because it is committed to working strictly under the ambit of the law. The public is therefore urged to disregard this report and similar ones that are likely to be circulated as part of the grand scheme of forces who are bent on scuttling the nation's anti-graft war to satisfy their own selfish agenda at the expense of the teeming majority."

Femi Babafemi,Head, Media & Publicity,EFCC, Abuja