EFCC Can’t Prosecute Code of Conduct Tribunal Chairman

Information has emerged that the EFCC could not put the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Justice Danladi Umar, on trial over the N10 million bribery allegation “because the evidence against him was not weighty and not sufficient to sustain a possible prosecution.”

The anti-graft body, in a memorandum forwarded to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), confirmed that the facts as they were against the CCT chairman raised just mere suspicions which in law, cannot take the place of proof.

But the commission did confirm that one Ali Gambo Abdullahi, a Personal Assistant to the CCT boss, had admitted receiving N1.8m from one Rasheed Taiwo, who was standing trial at the tribunal.

Abdullahi was alleged to have used his salary account at Zenith Bank to collect the money in 2012.

In the letter dated March 5, 2015, and signed by the immediate-past Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, the complainant in the bribery saga (Rasheed Taiwo), a retired Deputy Comptroller General of Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) was said to have failed to produce the alleged telephone conversations and text messages exchanged by him and Justice Umar.

The former NCS chief was said to have persistently claimed that he had lost his phone since 2012 and could not trace or recover it.

EFCC said the telephone of the complainant would have been subjected to independent scientific analysis with a view to corroborating the bribery allegation against the CCT boss.

Also, former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), was also quoted to have said the CCT chairman cannot be removed from office by a mere fiat of the executive.

“The president must therefore garner enough support from the National Assembly to succeed in any bid to remove the chairman of CCT.”