Ribadu: Flamboyant lifestyle of EFCC operatives for probe

By Our Reporter - 06.01.2008

AS controversies rage on following the recent decision of the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, to send the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu on a one-year course, it has been established that the training was a ploy by the authority to probe the activities of the commission, following an upsurge in the number of police officers requesting to be posted to the commission, hence the IGP became curious about the need to probe the EFCC Chairman and the activities of his boys at the commission in the last four years.

Sources at the Police Headquarters in Abuja told Sunday Tribune that the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, became curious about the happenings in the commission following endless requests from policemen to be redeployed to EFCC.

“Although the police headquarters had received catalogue of petitions from victims of EFCC, alleging corruption and other vices, but the decision to send the EFCC boss, Malam Nuhu Ribadu on one year study leave was because of recent happenings in which nearly everybody now wants to work with EFCC. The upsurge in requests for posting to the EFCC actually made the IGP to want to probe activities in the commission and the best way to do it is to ease out Ribadu. “It is not possible to probe the commission while Ribadu still presides over the place,” a highly placed police source told Sunday Tribune.

Sunday Tribune also gathered from the police headquarters that the actions and activities of some of the policemen attached to the EFCC did not help matters as some of them often behaved as superstars, thus making their colleagues to begin to envy them.

“The situation is terrible, the EFCC operatives among us behave like superstars. They have unlimited access to money, unlike their counterparts, hence everybody began to envy them.

Apart from that, Sunday Tribune learnt that the policemen attached to the EFCC are often accused of being rude to their superiors, “you see, most of the boys working with Ribadu have developed swollen heads. They don’t respect anybody, apart from their boss, and this is a force where you take order from your superior, irrespective of whether you work under him or not, but in the case of the EFCC boys, the reverse is the case, they only recognise Ribadu, hence their actions became a subject of discussion within the force and everybody has been working on how to cut their wings,” a source told Sunday Tribune.

Sunday Tribune learnt that from next month, the Police authority would begin a probe into activities of the commission and find ways of ensuring that the operatives of EFCC succumb to the regular police force ways of doing things.

Also, the flambouyant lifestyles of the men of the commission, sources said, has become a source of worry to the police authority. Sunday Tribune learnt that some of the policemen attached to the commission live far above their income, hence the authority is finding ways of correcting the rot.

“They are flambouyant. We know that the operatives of the commission are living well, compared with the average policemenand there is the tendency that they make money through the commission. And this, coupled with the fact that series of petition bordering on corruption and abuse of office were pouring in on a daily basis from members of the public,” the source said.

The source also cited a case between the EFCC men and a former state governor. Sunday Tribune gathered that the former governor, in a petition to the IGP lamented that the men of the commission stormed his house and carted away millions of naira and American dollars. The governor in the petition stated that the EFCC men dealt with him despite collecting huge sum of money from him.