Why we don’t investigate some petitions —EFCC boss, Bawa

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has explained why some petitions that are sent to the commission are not investigated, saying some petitions fall outside its mandate.

According to him, the Commission receives hundreds of petitions across its 15 zonal offices in Nigeria on daily basis, noting that the petition vetting committees of the zonal offices go through the petitions and recommend whether or not the petitions fall in line with EFCC’s mandate.

Bawa disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television on Tuesday, monitored by Ripples Nigeria.

He said: “Once the committee is done with vetting the petitions, they recommend their findings and for those that are rejected, we have the obligation of communicating back to the petitioners or the complainants that their petitions were rejected and we tell them the reason behind that and then we advise them.

Read also: EFCC boss, Bawa, vows to resign if asked to go outside the law

“For any petition that is recommended for investigation, it will be assigned to various sections that we have within the investigation department or operations department for investigation and subsequent prosecution as the case may be. so.

“We receive all petitions but it is not all petitions that are within our mandate to investigate and then we need to turn them back but that does not mean that we can only investigate cases that are being reported to us.

“For instance, because of the special mandate that we have in fighting cybercrime, whether somebody lost money or not we investigate all elements of cybercrime. This is because, by law, the possession of fraudulent document is an offence, an attempt is an offence, so we pursue it.”

Meanwhile, he noted that the committees are being guided by laid down procedures.

By Victor Uzoho…

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