Atiku: I lent EFCC N300m to kick off in 2004

Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says he came to the financial rescue of the  Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when it was launched in 2004.

Atiku spoke on The Candidate, a presidential town hall conversation hosted by Kadaria Ahmed, a journalist.

He was responding to a question on how he would make the anti-graft agency independent and able to discharge its duties on time without preferential treatment.

He said the EFCC had no budgetary allocation to begin operation when it was launched.

“My quarrel with the judicial system is that there is too much delay. If we can shorten the delay, so that justice is seen to be meted out immediately, better for us.

“The problem is the legislation and the procedure being adopted by the judiciary. The cases we initiated in our administration are still in court. Now, where is the justice?

“When we set up the EFCC, I personally brought the first draft of the regulation from Brazil and it was based on that draft that the EFCC legislation was drafted.

“When it was finally passed by the national assembly, EFCC did not even have the money in the budget to start operation. I borrowed them N300m from the privatisation proceeds and said ‘you better get to work’.

“The following year when there was budgetary allocations, they repaid the money. Most of the convictions that we are hearing today were cases that we started in our administration.”