Expose religious societies involved in financial crimes – Group tasks EFCC

The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria,MMWG, has charged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, not to shield religious associations as well as other groups and individuals found culpable of financial crimes in the country.

The EFCC had recently disclosed in Abuja during its one-day dialogue with some stakeholders that some religious organisations were aiding and abetting corrupt practices, including money laundering, one of which it said kept N7 billion looted funds in an account and went to court to prevent the commission from verifying its account.

But the MMWG, in a statement signed by its national coordinator, Ibrahim Abdullahi and made available to newsmen in Abuja, maintained that exposing them would help the government in getting rid of economic problems, adding that the anti-graft agency should intensify its efforts to retrieve looted funds.

The group commended the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede for being courageous in making the disclosure but implored him to go further by disclosing the identity of the religious body.

It stated that the time has come for the commission to initiate amendments to some parts of the Administration of Criminal Justice, ACJ “whereby not all economic crimes would be bailable because of dangers inherent in it,” adding that it was time for Nigeria to benchmark bailable economic crimes in the country.

The MMWG also called for the abolition of plea bargaining in the nation’s legal system, pointing out that “its provision in the laws have encouraged economic crimes since offenders are made to refund only a certain percentage of looted funds to get cases against them terminated.”

On the high cost of food prices, the group implored President Bola Tinubu to meet with all the state governors and the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT for a successful food distribution process that would crash the prices, stating that the gains of subsidy removal could be ploughed into food and transportation subsidy to reduce hardship facing Nigerians instead of sharing money to states at the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC meetings.

The MMWG lamented that monies being shared monthly to governors are not being felt at the grassroots as the suffering of the masses has continued unabated.”