Cease EFCC from “harassing” Dangote, BUA, Oando, others

Sada Soli, the chairman of the Home of Representatives Committee on Water Assets, has condemned the raid of the headquarters of the Dangote Group by the Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee (EFCC).

Mr Soli, who represents Jibia/Kaita Federal Constituency of Katsina State, mentioned such a transfer towards Dangote Group poses a “risk to international and home investments”.

He described the latest probe of Dangote Group and 51 different personal entities as “harassment”, and, subsequently, known as for the intervention of President Bola Tinubu.

The legislator, who can be the chairman of the North-west caucus of the Home, made the decision in an announcement he issued on Friday.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the EFCC had written to 52 firms directing them to produce paperwork supporting the allocation and utilisation of foreign currency echange to them within the final 10 years.

On 4 January, the operatives of the anti-graft company visited Dangote Group headquarters, demanded related paperwork regarding the investigation, then scrutinised the paperwork supplied by officers of the group for hours, and carted a few of them away.

Mr Soli mentioned the method adopted for the investigation of Dangote Group and the others might disincentivise investments which the present administration wants.

“I write to precise concern over the latest invasion of the premises of the Dangote Industries Restricted in Ikoyi, Lagos, by operatives of the anti-graft company, ostensibly to gather paperwork regarding alleged abuse of international trade allocations in the course of the nine-year tenure of the instant previous governor of the Central Financial institution of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.

“There’s the added concern that some fifty different firms, a few of them the most important personal companies within the nation, together with BUA Group and Flour Mills, TGI and Wale Tinubu’s Oando PLC, amongst sundry others, all of whom have denied wrongdoing, are being probed for particulars of the foreign exchange allocations to them between 2014 and June 2023 following the report of the Particular Investigator on the CBN and Associated Entities, Jim Obazee,” he mentioned.

The lawmaker said that the general public show put up by the EFCC is the incorrect approach of dealing with such a delicate investigation.

“Whereas there isn’t any denying the truth that the anti-graft company is inside its rights to undertake such a probe, or that it has carried out an excellent job of ridding the nation of financial saboteurs prior to now, it’s nonetheless essential to level out that the best way the company had gone about this probe, by storming workplaces and making a spectacle of itself within the public area, is each counter-productive and able to sending the incorrect alerts. It should resist the temptation of performing on the impulse of some influential individuals in authorities with doubtful agendas.

“It’s definitely not the correct approach to deal with issues at a time when Nigeria goes via certainly one of its worst financial crises in historical past with inflation going via the roof, rising international funding outflows from Nigerian shares, and the bottom international direct funding in our economic system because the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics (NBS) began collating the info in 2013,” he mentioned.

Mr Soli, who’s a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), mentioned the president should intervene and cease the “harassment of the important thing contributors to the GDP and largest taxpayers whose companies assist deepen the expansion of our economic system, promote self-reliance within the manufacturing of native merchandise and supply employment and earnings for hundreds of thousands of Nigerians, is worrisome”.

He described the actions of the EFCC as “brazen” and contradictory to the agenda of Mr Tinubu, who campaigned on being pro-business.

He mentioned: “Such brazen assault on massive enterprise is definitely towards the pedigree of the person whose election was greeted by a bullish spike within the nation’s inventory market, heralding a brand new period for commerce as befitting a frontrunner whose genius for changing potential into actuality helped flip Lagos into a world monetary centre contributing 30 per cent of the nation’s GDP.”

Exit of multinationals

Mr Soli mentioned the exit of some multinationals within the final yr has created enormous unemployment within the labour market.

“Within the final one yr alone, among the most iconic multinational firms, together with Unilever, GSK, Sanofi-Aventi Nigeria, Bolt Meals, Jumia Meals, Equinor Nigeria Vitality Firm, ENEC, and Procter and Gamble amongst others, have left the nation and created extra jobless Nigerians thus worsening our financial index.

“That is subsequently not the time to discourage the funding drive of the Wale Tinubus, BUA Group, Dangote and the remaining whose firms are the biggest employers of labour exterior the Nigerian authorities. A lot of their subsidiaries get pleasure from pioneer or trailblazer statuses and they’re strategically embedded within the Nigerian economic system like an octopus and any try to strip them may have a debilitating impact on our economic system and our quest to lure in international traders.

“It doesn’t imply that firms shouldn’t be made to obey the legal guidelines, however we can’t afford to antagonise unnecessarily, firms which have invested tens of billions of {dollars} into the economic system and stay our greatest hope in turning the economic system round,” he mentioned.

Mr Soli requested the anti-graft companies to make use of one of the best practices for dealing with infractions.

The lawmaker mentioned such an intervention by the president would dispel rumours that the latest transfer towards the Dangote Group is political.

READ ALSO: EFCC raids Dangote Teams headquarters in Lagos

“Already, there are rumours that some hawks throughout the corridors of energy are utilizing the excuse of a foreign exchange probe as a shakedown so as to get a toehold into Dangote Refinery, to reap the place they’d not sown.

“Whereas there’s but no conclusive proof of this, the very fact is that notion can typically conquer actuality and the impression shouldn’t be provided that the federal government is making an attempt to assault northern pursuits by subjecting the richest northerner, Nigerian and African, with the biggest conglomerate within the area, to pointless harassment,” he mentioned.