President Muhammadu Buhari had last Monday announced the unceremo­nious removal of the Chair­man of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commis­sion, EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, thus bringing his reign as the country’s anti-graft head to an abrupt end amid, albeit, fraud allega­tions. Lamorde’s sacking came few weeks to the end of his four-year tenure.

The Executive Chair­man, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran, said, “One thing that such reck­less sacking would en­gender is the fear of good people serving at anti-corruption, investigative panels or regulatory agen­cies as chairman or head. It has been established that when you fight corruption, corruption fights back and these corrupt elements are ruthless when they have to fight back.’’

Adeniran also expressed dissatisfaction over the sacking of Lamorde just days before the expiration of his tenure as the EFCC chairman, “more so when he had not been found guilty of any wrongdoing in spite of the allegations against him. If the system has toler­ated him up till this point, why wouldn’t they give him the couple of days before the expiration of his tenure?

“We should recall that both Nuhu Ribadu and Mrs Farida Waziri were humili­ated out of office in similar circumstances while inves­tigation and prosecution of some highly placed govern­ment officials both at the na­tional and state levels were going on. The same pattern plays out in the National As­sembly where heads of com­mittees that tried to probe corruption allegations have been humiliated one way or the other.”

“If in the course of per­forming their statutory duties, they are accused of wrong doings, they should be made to complete the assignments they are han­dling, get to a logical con­clusion before they are prosecuted or made to quit the office because quitting the office abruptly will be more of advantage to the accused persons than to the cause of justice. And getting the heads of these agencies and panels out of the way might be the only reason why the complain­ant or their cronies could have accused the heads of agencies investigating or prosecuting them so that the process of getting the criminals diligently inves­tigated and prosecuted may be truncated”. Adeniran stressed