The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says Ibrahim Magu, chairman of the commission, was misunderstood on the payment of reward to the person who gave the information that led to the recovery of huge cash at a luxury apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos.

“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,” a statement by Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC spokesman said.

“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.”

The EFCC said it was not even directly involved in the payment of whistle-blowers. “Magu never said that the young man has been paid. The commission is not even directly responsible for the payment of rewards to whistle-blowers.”

The claim by Magu that the whistle-blower had become a millionaire had generated controversy with the revelations that the man had not been paid a dime.

Yakubu Galadima, the lawyer to the whistle-blower said his client has not been paid despite several efforts made to get the man’s reward.

Galadima said instead of paying the whistle-blower, he had been called a “mad boy” by the EFCC and detained at the psychiatrist hospital.

The Federal Government had in December 2016 adopted a policy on whistle blowing to encourage citizens to report financial and other related crimes to relevant authorities.

According to the policy, whistle-blowers whose revelations lead to the recovery of money are entitled to as much as five percent of the recovered sum.