EFCC ‘recovers N130 million, prosecute nine in North-East’

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Gombe Zone Office, says it has recovered N130 million from the 2015 election looted funds and has convicted nine people from January to March 2018 in the zone.

The Zonal Head of Operation of the Commission, Johnson Babalola, said this when he visited the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Gombe.

According to him, since the coming of this administration in 2015, the Commission has increased its tempo in the fight against corruption adding that recovery of looted funds and prosecutions are still ongoing.

He said there is greater need now to fight corruption, if not, the future of the country would be ruined if selfish people are allowed to steal money that belongs to all Nigerians.

In his words, “Nigeria belongs to all of us and we owe it a duty to make the system work and we feel the media is our catchment area if our fight must succeed.

“Immediately this administration came on board in 2015, the Government redirected the fight against corruption under Ibrahim Magu and the tempo has changed to a higher speed,” he said.

Speaking on the cooperation the Commission has been receiving from the public through divulging useful information, Mr. Babalola said the Commission has been treating such issues with great care so as not to be used as agent of vendetta.

“We are very organised, when some one divulges an information, we issue him a form to fill, if he agrees, we make him understand that after investigation is completed and his information is discovered to be false, we prosecute that person. We treat issues based on their merit,” he stated.