Africa
EFCC to Bar Corrupt Politicians From Contesting
By Elor Nkereuwem, Next 27/8/10
Aug 27, 2010 - 9:09:45 AM

Corrupt politicians who plan to run for offices in the coming elections will be stopped by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the anti-graft agency said in Abuja yesterday.

Farida Waziri, the chairman of the commission, stated this while receiving board members of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) at the EFCC headquarters. She said that the anti-graft agency will prevent corrupt politicians from contesting any public office in 2011. According to her, the anti-graft agency would collaborate with the police, the State Security Service, the Independent National Electoral Commission and the CCB to jointly produce a security report on every candidate that shows interests in the elections. “Based on their security reports, they will be stopped at the right time,” she said. “There is no way that we will allow the political parties to field corrupt people. Legally, we are empowered to look into some of these issues.”

Mrs Waziri also said that the EFCC will use ongoing investigations to prevent indicted officials from running for office. “How do we allow these people to come back and say that they are going to lead us? The world will laugh at us,” she said. “We see that some of them are already printing posters and I will see how they are going to work that out. We are not going to allow that. We want to ensure that only the proper persons will represent us.”

Past offenders to be tried

The Chairman of the board of the CCB, Sam Saba, said that former ministers who failed to properly declare their assets will be facing a tribunal soon. “Some past ministers did not declare their assets,” he said. “Their names have been compiled and we’ve sent the names to the Federal Ministry of Justice because we have to get their approval before inviting them to face the tribunal.” Mrs Waziri also noted that some corrupt persons, who have intentions to loot public funds, deliberately declare more assets than they have, and urged the CCB to properly investigate all declared assets. “Some with intentions to steal put fake items in the forms,” she said. “Some claim that they have houses in the US, UK.”

Responding, Mr Saba said that his team had settled down to work adding that the CCB has already noted that most public officials, especially the legislators, keep foreign accounts which they have not declared to the bureau.