CLO petitions EFCC over Yabatech’s rector alleged financial impropriety.

There was a mild drama on Tuesday, at the Lagos office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), as members of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO)‎, stormed the anti-corruption agency’s office to protest the alleged financial impropriety and abuse of office by Rector, Yaba College of Technology, YABATECH, Lagos, Dr. Margaret Ladipo.

Yaba-Tech

Members of the civil society organisation, led by its President, Igho Akeregha, who arrived the EFCC office, along Awolowo Way, Ikoyi, at about 11.30am, said they were protesting to remind the agency of the urgent need to conduct a detailed impartial investigation into alleged mismanagement of public funds, abuse of office and sundry acts of corruption levelled against YABATECH Rector, by some senior staff of the institution.

Akeregha, whose members initially met stiff resistance at the commission’s main gate by security operatives, noted that despite writing the EFCC in 2014 and again in June 2015, the agency has refused to invite the management for interrogation.

A mild drama, however occurred when two senior officials of the EFCC Media and Publicity department, Lagos office, later came out to address CLO members, as there was argument over the passivity of the EFCC in probing the matter, following several petition letters sent by the CLO.

Akeregha said: “We are here to meet with officials of the EFCC to sought reasons why a petition we wrote since 2014, to draw the attention of the Commission to the alleged fraud and abuse of office by the Rector, Yaba College of Technology. Since the Commission has not responded to any of our two petition letters, we decided to take the bull by the horn to come here with some of our members.”

However, in a swift response, an official of the Media and Publicity department of the EFCC Lagos, who pleaded anonymity as he was not authorised to speak said: “No, you are missing it. The EFCC is aware of your petition letters and we have been ‎on it. To show that we acknowledged your letters, that was why they bore our official stamp, when you sent them to our office. That is how we operate, when we get petitions from concerned Nigerians.

“The only problem we have is communication lacuna. Our method of handling civil matter is different from the way we handle matters of financial impropriety. I can assure you that we have invited the Rector for interrogations. So, we need not make noise over it,” the EFCC official said.

Still not satisfied with the explanation of the agency, Executive Director of CLO, Comrade Ibuchukwu Ezike said: “We have lost patience with the EFCC with the way it has treated our petitions. If you say, you‎ have been treating our petitions, why have we not heard that the Rector of YABATECH had been invited? If the EFCC says it needs not make noise over its operations concerning our petition, why did we hear about the invitation of the wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki, and other recent cases.”

Meanwhile, at the time of filing this report, efforts to speak to the institution’s Rector was futile as her phone was switched-off. Also, Vanguard made efforts to speak to the institution’s spokesperson, Charles Oni, but he failed to pick calls made to his phone, neither did he respond to text message sent to his phone.