We didn't make Deputy Senate President, Ekweremadu an Anti-Corruption Ambassador - EFCC

Ike Ekweremadu
Deputy Senate President 

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has denied claims that the anti-graft agency decorated the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, as an “Anti-Corruption Ambassador”.

Debunking a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the Deputy Senate President, Uche Anichukwu, claiming that the decoration, was carried out by the EFCC National Assembly Liaison Officer, Suleiman Bakari. 

Bakari in the statement was quoted to have said: “On behalf of

my acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu and the entire management and staff of the EFCC, decorate you as an Anti- Corruption Ambassador and formally present this frame, as a token of our appreciation to your person and office, and as a symbol of the institutional partnership between the EFCC and the National Assembly”.

The EFCC has however dissociated itself from the purported action of Sulaiman Bakari, claiming that "he acted entirely on his own." 

According to the EFCC Media & Publicity head, Wilson Uwujaren, Bakari "clearly acted outside his brief as a liaison officer as the management of the Commission at no time mandated him to decorate Ekweremadu or any officer of the National Assembly as Anti- Corruption Ambassador.

"The statutory mandate of the EFCC is the investigation and prosecution of all economic and financial crimes cases, which does not include the decoration of individuals as anti- corruption ambassadors. 

"The Commission is not in the habit of awarding titles to individuals. And those enamoured of titles, knows the quarters to approach for such honours, not the EFCC" he added.

The EFCC therefore enjoined members of the public and stakeholders in the fight against corruption to disregard the so-called decoration.