EFCC dismisses 11 officials for forgery

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EFCC dismisses 11 officials for forgery
By Oscarline Onwuemenyi, Abuja
Published: Monday, 25 Aug 2008

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Sunday said it had dismissed 11 officials for forgery and other fraudulent acts.

The dismissed officials include three junior staff, four cadet officers, three senior staff and one management officer.

According to a statement by the Head of Media and Publicity in the commission, Mr. Femi Babafemi, and made available to our correspondent in Abuja, the affected officers were sacked between August 2007 and August 2008.

The dismissed officials were detected after routine investigations carried out on them to verify the authenticity of their academic claims revealed anomalies.

Those dismissed on account of certificate forgery include Adamu Samson, Usman Muhammed, Muhammed Umar, Collins Nwachukwu, Shola Pedro, Olatunji Oluwakeri, Adaka James, Akinwamide Oluwaseyi, Mohammed Maina, and David Ibhawoh.

While the 10 officers dismissed on account of forgery will not be prosecuted, the Chairman of the commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri, has, however, directed that Mr. Davies Idrisu Ibrahim, who was arrested in Lagos last week for conniving with others to defraud a suspect, should be dismissed and prosecuted.

He is expected to be charged to court this week.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Ambassador to Australia, Prof. Sunday Olu Agbi, has said that people being cheated in the so-called “Nigerian scams” are greedy and should be jailed.

According to an online publication, Agbi said on Sunday that Nigeria had gained a bad reputation because of the scams perpetrated by a few people, and that those who found themselves involved with the scams were equally as guilty as those running them.

It reads, “The Nigerian government frowns very seriously on these scams and everyday tries to track down those who are involved,” Agbi told the Sydney Morning Herald in response to a previous article on Australians falling for Nigerian scams.

“People who send their money are as guilty as those who are asking them to send the money,” he said.

Out of the 140 million people in Nigeria, Agbi said that 0.1 per cent were involved in scams. The scams, also referred to as 419 or advance-fee fraud, predate the Internet, but have exploded in recent years thanks to the proliferation of e-mail and instant money transfers.

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