Anti-corruption cops axed

2008-08-25 09:38

Lagos - Nigeria's anti-corruption police said on Sunday it had sacked 11 of its own officials, most of them for lying about their academic credentials and one for trying to defraud a suspect.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria, a West African nation consistently ranked among the most corrupt in the world, said the 11 officials had been fired over the past year for "forgery and other fraudulent acts".

"Of the eleven dismissed officials, three were junior staff, four cadet officers, three senior staff and one management officer," the EFCC said in a statement.

President Umaru Yar'Adua took office in Africa's most populous nation in May 2007, pledging zero tolerance for graft.

But the EFCC has been plagued by controversy.

Opposition and rights campaigners have said the appointment to head the commission earlier this year of Farida Waziri, a retired high-ranking police officer, was sponsored by ex-state governors facing corruption and money laundering charges.

The EFCC was prosecuting seven state governors from the previous administration when its former head, Nuhu Ribadu, was sent on a one-year policy and strategic studies course at a remote institute in central Nigeria in December.

The move triggered accusations that the government had caved in to pressure from politicians anxious to stop investigations into their finances, a charge which the head of the national police - who announced Ribadu's removal - has denied.

Campaigners say there has been no significant progress in the cases against the former governors, two of whom helped finance Yar'Adua's election victory in April 2007.

- Reuters