Anti-graft War: EFCC Urges Stakeholders to Embrace Whistle Blowing
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa has called on all stakeholders to embrace the Federal Government’s whistleblowers policy as a viable tool in tackling corruption.
He made the appeal on Thursday, June 30, 2022, while presenting a paper entitled “For Effective Anticorruption, We Must Overcome The Challenges of Whistleblowing” at a Town Hall Meeting organized by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy, AFRICMIL, at La-Luna Hotels, Awka ,Anambra State.
Bawa who spoke through the Commander of the Enugu Zonal Command of the Commission, ACE Johnson Oshodi highlighted the landmark recoveries made by the Commission as a result of information supplied by whistle blowers. He however lamented that despite the initial gains, the Policy appeared to have waned.
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“It would seem that the Policy is experiencing challenges that tend to undermine its effectiveness. Several factors are responsible for this. But to my mind, the most obvious is the lack of adequate understanding of the Legal and Administrative frameworks of the policy and the difficulties of navigating the labyrinth of bureaucratic processes for claiming the advertised incentives.
“It is also not impossible that the few false informants who were prosecuted for wanting to turn a serious programme to memes, unnerved some other would be informants,” he said
The EFCC Chairman emphasized the importance of collaboration and support of stakeholders in the fight against economic and financial crimes. “We are first to acknowledge that the EFCC cannot be everywhere and therefore, acknowledged the operational limitations therefrom. Information flowing from citizens is a highly-priced, critical source of intelligence for the Commission. Such actionable intelligence is the oil that lubricates the engine of law enforcement in Nigeria as indeed, everywhere else”, he said.
He enjoined all present at the event to download and use the EFCC’s application, Eagle Eye App, for whistle blowing purposes. He assured the stakeholders that the EFCC is committed to the success of the Whistle Blowing policy which is a critical peg of the anti-corruption framework of the Muhammadu Buhari Administration.
Wilson Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity
1 July, 2022
