The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has denied honouring the Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, as Anti-Corruption Ambassador.

It called on members of the public to disregard the decoration.

In a strongly-worded statement issued on Tuesday, the anti-graft agency dissociated itself from the award purportedly bestowed on Ekweremadu by the EFCC’s National Assembly Liaison Officer, Suleiman Bakari.

In the statement, the spokesperson for the Deputy Senate President, Uche Anichukwu, had quoted Bakari as bestowing Ekweremadu with the honour on behalf of the EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu.

“On behalf of my acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu and the entire management and staff of the EFCC, decorate you as an Anti- Corruption Ambassador and formally present this frame, as a token of our appreciation to your person and office, and as a symbol of the institutional partnership between the EFCC and the National Assembly,” the liaison officer was quoted as saying

The EFCC said the officer was not permitted by it to decorate anybody with such a title, adding that it was a case of corruption fighting back.

“The Commission views this highly unprofessional and conduct of the officer as yet another manifestation of ‘Corruption Fighting Back.’ This leg of the despicable campaign, which is unfortunately being carried out by a staff of the Commission, had been foreshadowed in recent weeks by other questionable acts.

“For instance, all through last week, some courts issued a string of anti-EFCC rulings looking like calculated attempts to derail the anti-corruption war, even as there were indications of the capture of a prominent section of the media by dark forces,” the statement issued by Wilson Uwujaren said.

It gave as example of corruption fighting back the recent move by the Senate to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Acts as well as the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

It also said its mandate does not include decorating anyone as anti-corruption ambassador.

“Let it be underscored that the statutory mandate of the EFCC is the investigation and prosecution of all economic and financial crimes cases, which does not include phoney decoration of any individual as “Anti-corruption Ambassador”. That award and title are unknown to the EFCC and could not have been invested as purported, on behalf of the Acting Chairman, Management and staff of the EFCC.”

According to an EFCC source, who does not want to be named, the agency is set to recall its liaison officer at the National Assembly who did the decoration.