MENU When EFCC officials were attacked

All over the world, exposing or fighting corruption is not for the fainthearted. Suspects push back, sometimes violently. ROBERT EGBE outlines five times some EFCC officials suffered violence in the line of duty.

“I should not be threatened. I should not be threatened for doing what I am supposed to do. I’m too young to be threatened. Greater is He that is in me. Don’t threaten me! Don’t threaten me!”

Counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Rotimi Oyedepo, protesting a comment made by a claimant’s counsel in a suit by former First Lady Mrs Patience Jonathan seeking to unfreeze her accounts with a balance of $15.5 million at the Federal High Court, Lagos last March 27.

 Lawyer shot, policeman killed

 In April 2010, a team of EFCC prosecutors returning to Enugu after a court appearance in Owerri, Imo State was attacked by gunmen who opened fire on them.

Their police escort, Sergeant Eze Edoga, was killed while a senior counsel with the Commission, Joseph Uzor was critically wounded but survived

 Assassinated at home

 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) suffered a major tragedy on September 14, 2010 when its head of forensic unit, Abdullahi Muazu, was killed in his Kaduna home.

Muazu, who worked in the commission’s Abuja headquarters, had travelled to Kaduna to spend the end of Ramadanholiday with his family.

In a statement, the commission said: “Information reaching the Commission today (September 14) 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.”

An unidentified operative of the agency told now defunct newspaper NEXT that Mr Muazu was very involved in trials of bank chiefs who were sacked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2009.

“Muazu was involved in virtually all our cases because he was the head of the Forensic Unit, so it is difficult to say that we suspect any particular person.

“I know that he was very much involved in all the trials of the Bank Chiefs, you know with checking finger prints and all that,” the EFCC official said.

 Gunmen attack EFCC office leave death threat

 The EFCC suffered a scare on August 16, last year, when unknown gunmen attacked its headquarters at Wuse Zone 7, Abuja.

No life was lost in the incident, which the commission’s spokesman, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, described as a major security breach.

Uwujaren said: “The group of heavily armed bandits invaded the office at about 05.00 hours and began shooting into the premises, damaging vehicles parked in the premises in the process.

“However, the attack was repelled by guards on duty.

“The hoodlums escaped in a getaway vehicle but not without leaving a message; a white envelope dropped by the fleeing attackers was found to contain a death threat addressed to Ishaku Sharu, a senior investigator with the Commission.

“Ishaku, who heads the Foreign Exchange Malpractices Fraud Section, is in charge of corruption investigation involving several politically exposed persons and retired military brass hats.

“The attack on the Zone 7 office which houses the Commission’s AMCON Desk, Procurement Fraud and Foreign Exchange Malpractices Sections, is coming few weeks after another investigator, Austin Okwor was shot and wounded by unknown assailants in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Chairman of the Presidential Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) Prof. Itse Sagay, described the attack as frightening.

Sagay said: “Good God, is that so? It is a frightening development. How could gunmen have courage to go to the EFCC office to shoot at them? It just shows you how desperate the looters and corrupt people are getting the courage to attack a major institution like the EFCC.

“It is shocking and it shows you the enormity of the battle to tame corruption and reduce it in this country. It shows why we need people who are strong and committed to fight the battle because the faint-hearted cannot do it in this country.”

 Top investigator shot

 On June 24, 2017, gunmen opened fire on a top EFCC investigator, Mr. Austin Okwor, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The hoodlums accosted Okwor of the Zonal Port Harcourt Property Fraud Section him as he left the office that evening.

He fled when they opened fire on him but suffered bullet wounds.

Okwor was one of the operatives investigating cases including that pertaining to corrupt judicial officials.

Before the incident, the officer had been receiving threat messages, the last of which was received a month earlier, the Head of the Zonal office, Ishaq Salihu, said.

 White envelop in car trunk

Sometime in May 2017, EFCC counsel Zainab Ettu found a letter threatening her and her family on the windshield of her car where it was parked at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The threat, scribbled on a tiny piece of rough paper, named her husband and her two kids, but she didn’t make much of the incident and did not report it.

On October 29, 2017, Ettu arrived from her mother’s place where she and her children spent the weekend, to be informed by her neighbours that “three strange-Iooking men” had been seen at about 9.30 pm of October 27, 2017, trying to gain entry into her flat

On September 31, 2018, she noticed a white envelope, threatening her and her family, in the trunk of her car.

Court documents quoted Ettu as telling the police that she often noticed that she was being followed on her way home.

She said: “On the 8th of November 2018, at about 8pm on my way home from the office close to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) end of the Third Mainland Bridge, I saw something flying towards me which caused me to swerve and lose control of the car that I ended up smashing the car into the side railings of the bridge.

“I noticed that a car, Toyota Model, driving about 15 feet away on the next lane, increased its speed and sped away and I was able to conclude that whatever was thrown at me came from the car.

“Upon inspection, the accident had damaged my car with a dent on the bonnet of the car and the car bumper was damaged.”