The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) yesterday has urged the new Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Abdulraheed Bawa, to re-engineer and restore professionalism in the anti-graft agency.
The party in a statement on Sunday in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, urged Bawa to avoid the trap of his immediate predecessor in office, Mr Ibrahim Magu.
Also, he advised Bawa to withstand all factional pressures to use the agency as a tool for political persecution, harassment of dissenting voices, settling of personal scores as well as personal enrichment.
He said that such tendencies eroded professionalism in the EFCC, compromised its activities and diminished the public confidence with regard to fairness, impartiality and even-handedness in the handling of cases.
Ologbondiyan noted that the EFCC was established to fight corruption and not as a tool for oppression and intimidation of innocent Nigerians for political and other unjustified reasons.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had earlier urged Bawa to spare no one in his fight against corruption.
“The PDP notes that for the first time, the Chairman of the EFCC is drawn from the pool of trained investigators of the commission.
“Nigerians expect the new chairman to bring the benefits of his training to bear by sanitising the system and restoring professionalism in line with international best practices.
“Furthermore, our party urges the new EFCC Chairman to bear in mind that, given his young age and training, he should exhibit the ideals of the Generation-Next Nigeria in reciprocation of the confidence Nigerians repose in him.”
