Elder statesman and Ijaw leader Chief Edwin Clerk, has asked President Umaru Yar’Adua to set up a judicial commission of enquiry into the activities of the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Addressing a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, Chief Clerk expressed disappointment at a statement credited to the EFCC Chairman Mrs. Farida Waziri that the antigraft commission, has no evidence of corrupt practices against thirty one governors indicted during the previous administration.
He says the utterance is disturbing as the former EFCC Chairman Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, had earlier presented a report to the National Assembly, which stipulated that thirty-one former governors were corrupt.
Visibly upset, the Ijaw leader said he is "disappointed" with the way the fight against corruption is being handled by the EFCC, and the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa.
Chief clerk has also criticised the Justice Minister for what he described as a “veiled castigation and intimidation of Justice Shuaib of Kaduna Federal High Court, for keeping former Delta state governor James Ibori in prison custody for sixty four days”.
He said that the criticism of the attorney general is detrimental to the fight against corruption.
He warns that the present administration's stance of “Zero Tolerance for Corruption” would be discredited if President Yar’Adua does not look into these issues.
Meanwhile, the EFCC boss, Mrs. Farida Waziri on Wednesday, blamed her detractors for the current negative reports she said that she had been receiving in the media.
``Look at the screaming headlines. I know that my detractors are still working to throw brickbats at me left, right and centre; that is why I have been very careful talking to the press.
She said that though she had tried to correct the reports, such negative stories had persisted.
``It is so much that I am shielding Obasanjo, that I am shielding governors, that I went there (commission) to protect governors,'' she lamented.
Waziri spoke shortly before a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes.
She said that she did not know what the committee members wanted from her as she was not told what the meeting was all about.
``I think I should be told that this is what the distinguished committee wants. If it is based on the submission, of course, I will prepare adequately and I will come and take questions,'' she said.
Waziri explained that she was not prosecuting former President Olusegun Obasanjo, because there was no petition against him before her.
She said: ``The operatives said that there were 31 ex-governors waiting to be charged to court. As far as I know, I am doing what I can do on the facts of the cases I met on ground.
``I cannot just manufacture evidence. This is a case of prove beyond all reasonable doubt'.
``Secondly, if you go on air to tell a sitting governor that I hear that you are a thief and I will prosecute you. Of course, the governor is not stupid. He will destroy everything that he thinks will be incriminating.
``I have often made an example of a governor that had three bundles of a case file and his statement is not in that case file and it is trite law that you must hear both sides.
``The cases are not completed. I cannot take half completed cases to court because that is the law; If not, the case is null and void ab-initio.''
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