The
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has vowed to probe all
government officials and prominent Nigerians linked to secret foreign
accounts and firms in Panama, a tax haven.
EFCC’s Director of
Information, Osita Nwaja, made the disclosure while speaking to
protesters who stormed the Abuja head office of the commission,
demanding that all Nigerians accused of operating offshore accounts in
Panama be investigated.
Nwaja said, “These papers (Panama Papers)
did not emanate from Nigeria but they touch the lives of the people of
Nigeria and corruption as well as money laundering has gone beyond
national borders as we are seeing from these papers.
“The
EFCC is not just a Nigerian organisation. The work that we do goes
beyond national borders. So, this request will be looked into along with
other requests by other well-meaning Nigerians along the already
charted course of Mr. President, which is zero tolerance for corruption,
zero tolerance for impunity, zero tolerance for the abuse of public
office and continued subjugation of the Nigerian people.”
DAILY
POST recalls that a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca had recently
released an 11.5m documents to a German newspaper and International
Consortium of Journalist showing how political leaders and the
super-rich conduct business in the tax haven of Panama.
The
document which was published by an Online medium last week linked many
prominent Nigerians to secret accounts in Panama. However, check by
DAILY POST on Tuesday revealed that only James Ibori’s name was
mentioned in the papers.
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