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 organization. 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.”
Famzn News 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 Famzn News on Tuesday revealed that only James Ibori’s name was mentioned in the papers.
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