March 30, (THEWILL) – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has told a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja that the commission does not need to receive a petition against a suspect to activate it to investigate crimes.
Chairman of the Anti-graft agency, Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this clarification while being cross-examined by the lawyer of an oil firm, Nadabo Energy and its chairman, Abubakar Peters, who is standing trial before the court over an alleged N1.4 billion oil subsidy fraud.
The EFCC is prosecuting Abubakar and his company before Justice Christopher Balogun, on a 27-count charge of allegedly using forged documents to obtain the sum of N1,464,961,978.24 from the Federal Government as oil subsidy, after allegedly inflating the quantity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), purportedly imported and supplied by the company.
The EFCC boss, who was the fifth prosecution witness in the matter was asked by the defence counsel, Osagie Isiramen of the anti-graft agency, if the Commission could just investigate an individual without a petition directly accusing the person of the alleged fraud?
Bawa, who answered in the affirmative, quoted Section 7 (b) of the EFCC Establishment Act, which he claimed gives the EFCC special powers to cause an investigation involving any individual whose lifestyle is not commensurate with his source of income.
When further asked, who determines the measure of a person’s lifestyle?
“Intelligence based on what we know about the person that his lifestyle is not commensurate with his known source of income, then, the EFCC can cause an investigation to be carried out”, Bawa said.
Bawa maintained that the “EFCC can cause an investigation on anybody who is believed to have done something wrong against the EFCC Act.”
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