The Arewa Front for National Advancement, AFNA, has accused the chairman
of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, of
bias and culpability over pension fraud in the country.
National spokesperson of the group, Mallam Isa Haruna, in a statement in
Abuja on Tuesday alleged that Lamorde benefitted from the biometric
conducted by the Office of the Head of Service through the Pension Reform
Task Team, PRTT, as the EFCC was part of the team.
Haruna further stated that Lamorde as Director of Operation of the
anti-graft body collected money for the biometric personally as well as
for meetings which he never attended and only returned the money he had
earlier received for the biometric of those abroad following the Senate
Committee Establishments inquiry into the matter.
The group reiterated its allegation of political witch hunt and called for
the sack of Larmode from the commission as he was now a willing tool in
the hands of some cabal bent on tarnishing the reputation of Mr. Steve
Orosanye and Dr. Abdulrasheed Maina despite their patriotic service to the
country.
According to him, the EFCC lied when it said Maina was at large when the
commission had never invited him or questioned him in the past on the
matter of biometric contract.
The AFNA spokesperson observed that the biometric yielded over 70, 000
ghost pensioners as well as captured 170, 000 others, and contributed
about N74billion into the 2012 budget.
He commended Justice Gabriel Kolawole, for acknowledging that the case was
not without political undertones, when he said that the court must “remain
immune to such issues which are rather complex, which no court of law has
the capacity to deal with.”