It’s False, EFCC Chairman Not In Any Deal With Tunde Ayeni – Commission

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has debunked news reports making the rounds that its Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa and former Chairman of the defunct Skye Bank, Tunde Ayeni, are travelling together, abroad, “on a clandestine, self-serving mission.”

EFCC Chairman Not In Any Deal With Tunde Ayeni

The EFCC, in a strongly worded statement issued on Friday afternoon, September 2 by its Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, said the story is “absolutely FALSE.”

According to him, the story vainly tries to push a certain “malodorous agenda.”

He said the commission would have ignored such a story, but because of “its potential to confound and confuse the unwary,” the anti-graft agency needs to set the facts straight.

The spokesman also said there was never a meeting and certainly no plan between the EFCC boss and Ayeni to go anywhere together.

Part of the EFCC statement reads, “If it were not for its potential to confound and confuse the unwary, the Commission would have ignored the story. However, there is every need to set the facts straight.

“To start with, there was never a meeting and certainly no “plan” between the EFCC Chair and Mr. Ayeni to go anywhere together.

Furthermore, while the EFCC Chairman is at this time on an approved mission abroad, Ayeni, whom the fiction-turned-news story says is on a clandestine trip with Mr. Bawa, is, from checks, right here in Nigeria. A cursory check would have confirmed that.

“If the design is to get the commission to compromise its mandate to investigate and prosecute all cases of economic and financial crimes, then the purveyors of the tendentious story have failed. Woefully.

“No matter what, the commission will be guided only by that mandate and its very clear Standard Operating Procedure and WILL NOT be blackmailed or act in any way predetermined or teleguided by  private interests. The EFCC WILL ONLY pursue the public interest as defined by the law establishing the commission.”

Meanwhile, Kanyi Daily had reported that the EFCC had denied reports that its operatives arrested Ebelechukwu Obiano, the wife of the immediate past governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano.