By Ifeizu Joe
The Governor of Anambra State, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, has revealed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) wrote him to absolve him of complicity in the controversy surrounding the award for printing of polymer notes during his time as Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Soludo stated this while delivering a goodwill message as the host governor, during the official commissioning of the zonal EFCC Directorate in Awka on Friday.
This clarification is coming on the heels of the feud between him and the presidential candidate of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Peter Obi, leading to some people inferring that Obi remains the only Anambra Governor that was never invited by EFCC, stating that Soludo was invited over controversies surrounding the polymer notes.
Clarifying this, the Governor said: “We are enthusiastic about having EFCC in Awka not because we our people are criminals and whatever, but we are begining to drill down the fight against economic and financial crimes to the grassroots. Fighting crime is the responsibility of everybody. Ideally, EFCC should be in the 774 LGAs, but with just 6,000 staff, there is a limit.
“Welcome to Anambra, we will cooperate with you in everyway possible to ensure that your work goes well. The work of the EFCC is pivotal to our national development and many people may not appreciate it because what they see is EFCC arresting people. But in a society where you have pervasive economic and financial crimes, that society will not move forward economically or in development.
“I applaud the professionalism of the EFCC. In Anambra, we will not wait until you come looking in our books, we will come knocking because we need your help in the areas of revenue, tax and training. We need training for our civil service, training for staff of Local government and others. Many of these crimes people don’t know about, like procurement processes and rules.
“My personal testimonies about the professionalism of this commission is that when I left office as CBN Governor, about three years after, EFCC was investigating an agency within the bank; the mint. I was chairman of board of the mint and I was given one month notice of investigation and I showed up. After about a year, I didn’t hear from them, so I wrote them and they said investigation so far didn’t show anything about me.
“When some journalists mentioned my name in connection with the investigation, the former chairman of EFCC told them that I was not the subject of the investigation. Subsequently, I they wrote me a beautiful letter and said their investigation showed I didn’t have anything to do with the matter. So I deeply appreciate the professionalism of the commission.
“I want to urge that if you invite someone and later fail to find them complicit, you must write and say so, especially in this part of the world when if you invite people, it finds its way to the pages of the newspaper because they see invitation as indictment.”
