Atiku Abubakar,
presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says he came to
the financial rescue of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) when it was launched in 2004.
Atiku spoke on The
Candidate, a presidential town hall conversation hosted by Kadaria Ahmed, a
journalist.
He was responding to a
question on how he would make the anti-graft agency independent and able to
discharge its duties on time without preferential treatment.
He said the EFCC had no
budgetary allocation to begin operation when it was launched.
“My quarrel with the
judicial system is that there is too much delay. If we can shorten the delay,
so that justice is seen to be meted out immediately, better for us.
“The problem is the
legislation and the procedure being adopted by the judiciary. The cases we
initiated in our administration are still in court. Now, where is the justice?
“When we set up the EFCC,
I personally brought the first draft of the regulation from Brazil and it was
based on that draft that the EFCC legislation was drafted.
“When it was finally
passed by the national assembly, EFCC did not even have the money in the budget
to start operation. I borrowed them N300m from the privatisation proceeds and
said ‘you better get to work’.
“The following year when
there was budgetary allocations, they repaid the money. Most of the convictions
that we are hearing today were cases that we started in our administration.”
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