By Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan
The acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, Wednesday said the anti-graft agency is committed to respecting human rights in its constitutional mandate of waging war against corruption.
Magu, while featuring as a discussant at the Human Rights Stakeholders’ Summit of the National Human Rights Commission ( NHRC), Oyo State branch held in Ibadan, also said the effort of the commission is not targeted at any particular individual or group of people.
Represented at the event by the Head of EFCC’s Ibadan zonal office, Mr. Friday Ebelo, he stated that the anti-graft agency always does its best in handling its suspects with dignity and respect to avoid infringing on their rights.
According to him, “There is nothing like ‘We Against Them’ in our effort to rid our nation of economic and financial crimes. We take issues of human rights seriously and we always do our best to respect legitimate rights of our suspects.”
The maiden summit with the theme ‘The State of Human Right in Oyo State’, sought to take a holistic look at the state of citizens’ rights in the state as it brought together critical stakeholders to discuss issues around them.
While giving his keynote address, the Head of Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Prof. Ayobami Ojebode, described human rights as those rights every individual is entitled to for the fact of being human.
He challenged every citizen to be part of human rights protection as “protecting the human rights of citizens is far more than what only the government can do”.
The Oyo State Coordinator of the NHRC, Mrs. Oyindamola Bamgbose, while delivering the address of the Executive Secretary of the Commission, noted that the summit was part of the efforts to give prompt attention to problems of human rights violation as they arise.
