Nigeria: Assassins Kill Top Anti-Corruption Official

Nigeria: Assassins Kill EFCC’s Forensic Chief

Abuja — Barely five months after five operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, were ambushed by unknown persons in Enugu which led to the death of Sergeant Edoga Eze, another top shot of the anti-graft body, Mr. Abdulahi Muazu, was, yesterday, killed by unknown assassins in his Kaduna residence.

This is just as the agency said that about 1,000 hoodlums have allegedly been hired to burn down its zonal office in Port Harcourt. Muazu who was head of the forensic unit of the agency was killed in the early hours of Tuesday.

A statement signed by the agency’s Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, said the agency condemned the spate of killings of its top officials.

The statement said: “The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has condemned the murder of one of its top officials in the early hours of Tuesday, September 14, 2010 in his residence in Kaduna.

“Information reaching the Commission today (yesterday) confirms that our head of forensic unit was killed in a cruel manner in the early hours of today by unknown assailants.

“Those behind this attack may have succeeded in killing a strategic hand and a key witness in some of our on-going cases but their act has failed to dampen our spirit or deter us from continuing our investigation and prosecution of all forms of economic crimes and corruption in the country.”

Vanguard gathered that the Chairman of the EFCC, Mrs Farida Waziri, had already directed a team of operatives from the Abuja headquarters office of the Commission to proceed to Kaduna to assist the relevant security agencies in the investigation of the murder.

Planned attack on PH offices

Meanwhile, the Commission said that information available to it indicates that its office in Port Harcourt was about to be attacked by hoodlums.

The commission said: “Information available to us indicates that public funds are again being allegedly diverted in Rivers to sponsor attacks on our men and office in Port Harcourt. These attacks are to begin with the mobilization of 1,000 persons from each of the 23 local government areas of the State to stage a protest against the EFCC on Wednesday, September 15.

“This is to be followed by yet another protest by various women groups rejecting the presence of EFCC in the state. The real motive behind these sponsored protests is to set ablaze the Commission’s zonal office in Port Harcourt in a desperate bid to cripple the EFCC’s activities in the state and the entire South_South region.

“The Commission wishes to assure all that while it will continue to do its work within the ambit of the law, it has the right to defend itself and its officials against hirelings who have been paid to attack us under the guise of staging protests.

“The EFCC remains a creation of the laws of the Nigerian Federation and as such, no force of gangsterism in any part of the country will stop it from carrying out its statutory responsibilities.”

It would be recalled that in the last 24 months four officers of the anti_graft agency had lost their lives, a situation which made Mrs. Waziri to indicate during the presentation of a N9 million cheque the family of the slain Sergeant Eze early in the year that men and women of the agency would begin to carry arms in self defence if confronted by ugly situations.