Anti-Graft Network Condemns Attack On EFCC Office

The GIABA Journalists Network on Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing, Nigeria, has condemned the attack on the Abuja office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

A statement by the Country Coordinator of GIABA journalists network, Odan Agbese and Program Advisor Muhammad Nuruddeen, said.

The Wednesday mafia-styled dawn attack on the anti-graft facility has reinforced the reality that EFCC's anti-corruption war is bearing fruits hence the desperation by corrupt elements to stop it through violent means.

Said the Network: "The attack on the EFCC facility at the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja by gunmen simply unveiled the truth that the corrupt elements who are bearing the brunt of the agency's well articulated onslaught on corruption, are losing and would leave no stone unturned to stop it," the statement said.

"By this, we are calling on all meaning Nigerians to stand by the EFCC at this crucial time where beneficiaries of corruption are deploying all their available arsenals to ridicule, sabotage and derail the anti-graft war," the network said.

The network is an inter-country network for tracking money laundering and financial terrorism of GIABA - an institution of the ECOWAS responsible for facilitating the adoption and implementation of anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism.

The network said the attack on EFCC facility and its operatives is a "total war on Nigerians, therefore, it shouldn't be allowed to happen again."

The country coordinator Agbese said "the EFCC leadership must not be cowed by the recent violent tactics," and urged it to "tighten security around its facilities across the country and operatives and should not allow the challenge deter it from ridding Nigeria of corruption,

The network said the anti-graft agency should brace up for "more subtle and violent attacks from people who are losing billions of their stolen funds to the EFCC's aggressive war on graft in the last two years."

Signed:
GIABA Journalists Network on Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing, Nigeria

Abuja, Nigeria
August 18, 2017