Ebun Francis || Following the controversy generated by the claim by the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, Ibrahim Magu that the young man who blew the whistle that lead to the discovery of the Ikoyi Cash is now a millionaire, the anti-graft agency on Friday said that it not its responsibility to pay whistleblowers directly.
Wilson Uwajaren, the EFCC’s spokesman in a statement said that Magu was misquoted.
Yakubu Galadima who claims to represent the whistleblower and Chidi Odinkalu, a human right lawyer on Friday disputed the claim made by Magu in Vienna that the whistleblower has been paid millions of naira.
According to the lawyers, contrary to EFCC’s claim, the young man has been moved from one detention to another since the cash was discovered.
But in a statement on Friday, while clarifying its position, the agency said Magu meant that the young man has become a millionaire based on the federal government’s whistleblowing policy.
The statement read, “What Magu said at the 7th session of the council of state parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in Vienna, Austria, was that citizens should be encouraged to embrace whistleblowing because of the incentives attached.”
“To illustrate this, he stated that the gentleman who provided the information that triggered the huge recovery at Osborne Towers in Ikoyi was already a millionaire based on the incentive in the whistleblower policy where information providers are entitled to between 2.5 and 5 percent of the recovered sum.
“Magu never said that the young man has been paid. The commission is not even directly responsible for the payment of rewards to whistleblowers.
“There is also no controversy about the exact amount recovered in the operation which was streamed live, the first of its kind, and witnessed by the whistleblower, security at the towers and representative of the agency which claimed ownership of the money.”