N2.3bn scam: EFCC probes Bankole, others
National News Jun 22, 2010

By Emman Ovuakporie & Henry Umoru

ABUJA— Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, yesterday, said the agency will set up a panel to look into the alleged N2.3 billion scam in the House of Representatives.

Waziri said this when members of the Progressives Reform Group visited her to submit a petition containing the allegations levelled against the leadership of the House.

She said: “It is my pleasure to meet you; you are welcome to EFCC’s headquarters. I am delighted to have distinguished Honourable members. I read in the papers just like any other Nigerian that a petition was coming and to be presented personally by Honourable members.

”And, this morning, I saw an advert in the newspaper and with the Secretary of the commission we were going through and we discussed it. I was just sending for the Director of Operations that we don’t even have to wait for you to bring in a petition before we look into it. We have started looking into this.

”And, I was talking of setting up a committee of diligent and loyal and hardworking officers to look at this when I was told that you were around.

“We will receive this petition and we will look at it critically with professionalism and we will do our own. And, whoever is responsible or is found wanting will be brought to justice.

”The law, as we say, is no respecter of persons. Nobody is above the laws of the land; everybody is equal before the law. And, this is what we have been preaching and this is what we have been trying to do. I am particularly happy when people discover that something is wrong, economic crimes wise, and they take it upon themselves to expose and to bring it to our attention.

Leader of the group, Mr. Dino Melaye, said: “what we are fighting is not the Speaker but corruption in the leadership of the House of Representatives.”

Melaye had earlier led the same group to the Secretariat of the Peoples’ Democratic Party where they submitted a similar petition to the National Chairman. Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo.

He added: ”We have decided to battle corruption the way it has never been fought before, we have seen propaganda in the media and blackmail, government should not be seen as a government of the greedy, by the greedy and for the greedy.”

”We have been crying out loud that fighting corruption and economic crimes is not the exclusive preserve of EFCC and ICPC, it is everybody’s fight, and it is every Nigerian’s fight.

”This is our country, as you stated, we don’t have any other country, we have just Nigeria. And, there is no place like home. Even those of you that have gone out, you can compare and see that home is home and that there is no place like home.

”We will be pained when our country is being run down as a result of massive corruption. I am in a position to say because as I sit here, I know what goes on and I feel so much pain,” she added

A lot of Nigerians are trooping to India to seek for medical help. Just yesterday, India was categorised like us. Nigerians are trooping to Ghana to take our children to schools there. And this is a big shame, we cannot continue like this.

“And that was why when I got so desperate, I said may be the only thing is to get a law like death penalty just like the Chinese. They are many like us and the death penalty is working.

Some Nigerians really hate Nigeria. If Nigeria was a human being, you can imagine Nigeria would not exist today. Nigeria is so battered. I am talking of various cases we are handling like Siemens, Halliburton, Daimler, and Wilbros. All these cases give us very, very bad image and a bad name that foreign investors are even scared to come in and do anything with us.

Recently, the UK Government has enacted a law on corruption. And I was told that some of our colleagues, when the Secretary of the EFCC went to the US recently, said they have a problem. They said when they come to do business with Nigeria, Nigerian officials must demand for bribe. When they pay, they go back there and American law is waiting for them and so what do they do.

We have to look inward and do something. Whatever it is that anyone can do, we have to salvage our nation.

For the National Assembly, the House of Representatives in particular, I have been worried, I think most Nigerians have been very concerned, because there have been scandals upon scandals in that House.

And that is the bastion of democracy and the hope for the common man. And all the citizens that sent you or voted for you there, they feel that you are there to protect them.

But when we have issues all the time, starting from Salisu Buhari’s certificate, Etteh matter, the car scam and now, I mean it is something that is worrisome.

I think with this step you have taken and the action that will follow, you need to sanitise the House of Representatives and make it like any other House anywhere in the world, make it a beauty of democracy. I am sure that you have travelled to other Houses and parliaments.

“The other day I watched there was a fight also and chairs were flying in the House of Representatives. Was it not so?
When you talk of the body of principal officers, we will swing into action and you will see what we are doing.”

“I thank you and I wish other Nigerians not to sweep anything under the carpet, it won’t help anyone. If you know or feel that something is wrong somewhere, bring it to our attention and help us to fight this war. It is very tasking, it is very dangerous, very, very tedious but we have to do it. And what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. “

One of the numerous steps to dethroning Bankole. These people are joking with Jonathan! We wey from bayelsa know him well, He knows wat he's doing. We'll continue watching,

I just pray all those gruttons are all fetched out from their hiding place including serving governors.

For how long will the poor continue to suffer and the rich getting richer, only in this country will you see a graduate begging for transportation to their destination whereas the illiterates occupy the best positions in the house of commotion, please EFCC all nigerians are in support of what ever action you wish to carryout, just to bring sanity to our father land.