He told Saturday Vanguard, Wednesday night, that his commission was only doing its statutory duties and vowed that no intimidation or threat from any quarter can deter him and his commission from doing its work.

What informed your disclosure to the President of the Commission’s findings of alleged financial lodgements in a bank by the former Inspector-General of Police?

What informed my disclosure to the President?

Yes.

Nothing. My commission found out something that we considered against the law establishing EFCC and we reported to the President. We did that because our preliminary findings showed that the money, the cash lodgement was more than what the law said an individual should put in or own at a particular time.

We have the mandate to investigate such things and we did. EFCC can investigate the financial activities of anybody and you should not expect us to discriminate on matters like this. That won’t be fair.

How did you get the information in the first instance?

You expect me to tell you that? It was through our intelligence, of course.

How much was actually involved? I ask this against the backdrop of what we read that about N1.5 billion was tracked to one bank...

We are still investigating the actual amount of money involved. We will report our findings when we are through. We will give all the details later.

Why did you go public on the reason for the retirement of the former IGP?

The media and the public wanted to know and answers were provided. The initial investigation we (EFCC) carried out and reported to the President was the reason for his (Balogun’s) removal from office and there was need to say so to avoid unnecessary speculations.

There’s this general impression that you probably have something against Tafa Balogun and...

Like what? You see, people must look for something to say when things like this happen. It is very unfortunate, very unfortunate indeed. But the truth is that I have nothing personal against him.

Are you saying the motive for the disclosure couldn’t have been political afterall?

It is not. I don’t have anything against him and neither does my commission. I mean, this is not the first time we are making our investigation open. If you have been following the activities of EFCC since we started this assignment, we’ve always conducted our affairs openly without victimising anybody. Whether it be 419 case or any case involving economic crimes, we have always told the public the crimes we found out, the suspects who committed them and the names of the persons or person so involved.

It is not our policy in EFCC to victimise or witch-hunt anybody. So, the case of the former IGP (Balogun) couldn’t have been political. It was certainly not personal. We’re doing our job in accordance with our mandate by the President and Commander-in-Chief.

People are bound to be offended along the line of doing the job, but no harm is intended at all. It’s all in the public interest. Anybody can be investigated by this commission including me who is the chairman. I am not above the law.