Abdulazeez Abdulwahab
THE Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, yesterday 31st May 2023 met with the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting, which was the EFCC Chairman’s first official engagement with President Tinubu since he assumed office, allowed the anti-graft czar to brief the President on the state of the fight against corruption, including his recent visit to Saudi Arabia where he signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority (NAZAHA) of Saudi Arabia, in a bid to strengthen international partnerships to address the complex challenges posed by corruption.
This development, no doubt, discountenanced insinuations in some sections of the media that the meeting with the President was to brief him on the action of the operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) which on Tuesday morning laid siege on the Lagos office of the anti-graft commission.
“They even placed an armoured tank just to scare us away,” one EFCC official had told our correspondent on Tuesday.
While the siege lasted all the EFCC officials at the office in Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, were prevented from accessing the building by DSS officials,
A source, however, said that there has been an ongoing rivalry between both agencies over the ownership of the building.
Meanwhile, President Tinubu same day ordered the DSS to immediately vacate EFCC’s office.
President Tinubu, in a statement by his media aide, Tunde Rahman, called on the DSS to quit the premises.
“The President said if there were issues between the two important agencies of government, they would be resolved amicably,” the short statement read.
Eighteen-Eleven Media