The Senator representing Niger East, Mohammed Sani Musa, has declared he did not sponsor any Bill seeking more powers for the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to control the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Musa, in a message, said that the Bill he sponsored was “An Act to amend the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act 2004, to among other things widen the scope of the choice of a Chairman of the Commission.
He said: “By including a legal practitioner, retired or serving High Court Judge among those eligible to be appointed as Chairman of the Commission and to limit their tenure to a single term of five years; and for other related matters.
“I never proposed or spoke about any amendments to give AGF more powers or to weaken EFCC in the discharge of its responsibilities in anyway,” he said.
The lawmaker added that what he did was “in consonance with the view of most public commentators on the state of our nation’s corruption fight and how the appointment of the EFCC Chairman can be widen to make it more strong, and not allowing it limited to only the police officers, which they had all been at the helm of affairs in the Commission.”
According to him, his proposed legislation was also meant to limit the duration of the Chairman of the EFCC to a single one term of five years.
He said that his Bill did not in anyway seek more powers for the AGF over the EFCC.
His lawyer, Dandison Akurunwa Esq, of Dandi Akurunwa & Co, also protested.
The lawyer said: “Our instruction revealed that in your online publication of Saturday 22nd August, 2020, you caused a libelous publication to be done against our client by your reporter.
“The publication is libelous, false and is not true in content and in form.
“Your reporter never deemed it proper on his part to carry on proper investigation to ascertain the truth or otherwise of the story cooked against our client.
“The vivid description with the picture of our client who is the sponsor of the bill superimposed on the publication leaves no one in doubt that your paper is referring to our client.
“We wish to register the feeling of our client about the said publication.
“It did not only malign our client but cast him in bad light as someone who is against good governance of our nation.”
“This has caused him psychological pains and traumatized his peace as he has been inundated with phone calls from friends and foes over your publication.”
