Senate walks out EFCC officials

Officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may not have anticipated what befell them in the Senate hearing room on Wednesday.

The anti-graft officials were summarily walked out of the sitting of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions.

The committee is investigating alleged diversion of over N1 trillion by the Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde.

The controversial investigation had started smoothly by 10.45am with the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, hitting the gavel to commence proceedings.

Anyanwu proceeded to ask Secretary/Clerk of the Committee, Freedom Osolo, to read out petitions before the committee.

Osolo read a number of petitions including the one written by the Chief Executive Officer of Panic Alert Security Systems (PASS), Dr. George Uboh.

Anyanwu asked Uboh to affirm that the petition under reference was written by him.

Uboh answered in the affirmative.

Before he gave his evidence, Osolo led Uboh on oath.

Uboh was half way into his evidence in chief when some EFCC officials led by the Director Legal, Mr. Chile Okoroma, walked into the hearing room.

Among the EFCC officials was also Barrister Osuakwu Ugochukwu who said he was at the hearing to represent the EFCC Chairman, Mr. Lamorde.

Okoroma sought and was given permission to speak.

He noted that they (EFCC officials) were taken aback because most of the documents the petitioner referred to were not made available to the commission.

He also said the documents referred to the EFCC as a body and not to Lamorde as a person.

Okoroma said the petitioner claimed that the alleged frauds were committed by Lamorde.

The EFCC directed wanted to know why the committee decided to hear a petitioner with documents that were not made available to the person alleged to have committed the crimes.

He insisted that the documents should have been made available to the EFCC.