The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and its chairman Mr Ibrahim Mustafa Magu to desist from what it considers “unnecessary “shadow-boxing” and do the needful by leaving Dr Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar Governor of Zamfara State and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, to face his job.”
In a statement by Abdulrazaque Bello Barkino, Head, Media and Public Affairs, Wednesday, the Forum said the EFCC and its Chairman were still fishing on the wild allegation of landed property and $3 made by a publication against Governor Yari Abubakar of Zamfara State and Chairman of the Forum despite Abubakar’s repeated denial and report to the commission that he neither owns a plot of land in Lagos nor owns or intends to build a hotel in Lagos.
He said, “Yari had denied any links with a $3million hotel in Lagos, which some online media attributed to him and has in fact, sued the publications responsible for that insidious report for libel.
“But for want of scapegoats in its battle against the National Assembly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission continues to drag the governor’s name in the mud in a veiled effort to divert attention from the matters of the moment.
“The NGF therefore urges the public to note that this is not about any missing funds anymore as the NGF would like to categorically emphasize that it did not, at any material time, receive any funds from the Paris London refunds on behalf of any states.
He said the Ministry of Finance remitted the funds directly to the states and what the NGF received was monies due to the consortium of consultants who verified the amounts due to all the states that were owed.
Arguing that the NGF involvement with the Paris-London Club refunds was to intervene to draw down to 2 per cent the 10 and 30 percent commission states had agreed to pay consultants, he said:
“It is however understandable that in the absence of a fall guy, the EFCC has consistently maligned the person of the Zamfara State governor and Chairman of the NGF, Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar, even when the need to so do was untenable, ridiculous and absent.
“The NGF is asking the commanding heights of the EFCC to instead look elsewhere for its real or imagined enemies and allow Yari Abubakar to face enormous task of governing his state and leading the governors of Nigeria.
