If feelers reaching DAILY POST from official quarters are anything to go by, then the embattled chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Larmode, will be on his way out of the anti-graft agency in the coming days.
Informed sources in the commission and the presidency told our correspondent that contrary to the growing permutation that Larmode’s ouster is tied to the petition filed against him by Mr. George Uboh at the Senate, President Muhammadu Buhari has earlier not been favourably disposed to having Larmode champion his anti-corruption crusade owing to his “past records and antecedents”.
According to a presidential source who warned that his name should not be mentioned, “Most of what Uboh raised in the petition is what President Buhari is already in the know of. There are even more unfavourable things he knows of the present chairman that are not yet a public knowledge.
“Don’t forget that Larmode had headed the EFCC as acting chairman at some point. What he did or achieved within that period (he acted as chairman) is one that Mr. President has critically appraised and found out that he can’t be the man for the job”.
The source continued that, “I can assure you that it would take a miracle for Larmode to remain in office beyond the next one week. The signs are very obvious. Even stalwarts of the APC are not comfortable with him being there.
“Ever since Akpabio took that advert space in a national newspaper to distance PDP members in the Senate from the plan by the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition to probe the EFCC chairman, Mr. President has come under undue pressure to act fast to remove Larmode from that seat. To me, the whole scenario is one that unites the divergent interests in the ruling party in view of what the party members are asking of the President.”
On who is to replace Lamorde, the source first acknowledged that the President has his way and may choose to go “against public expectation as was the case in the speculations of Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau emerging the NSA. But barring any last minute changes, Hamid Ibrahim Alli, is likely to take Larmode’s place. I hear he is already being screened by the Department of State Services.
”But for Larmode, he won’t likely survive the current storm. It is bad enough for an EFCC boss to be in the eye of the storm. The President is not one that is likely to carry an extra baggage. He looks set to cash in on the moment to take him (Larmode) out of the job.”
Also at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, an insider told DAILY POST that, “everybody is currently ill at ease here. Most of us are already aware of the possible removal of Larmode in the coming days. But our fear is the shakeup the new man, who some top officials believe is likely to be Hamid Alli, will likely come to the job with.
“It is even said in hush tones here that it’s in a bid to escape any backlash that may come after his removal that the chairman traveled out of the country. I believe he may not be where many think he is presently. He is smarter than that,” the source said.
DAILY POST attempted to speak officially with other staff of the commission, but most of them expressed fear, saying they wouldn’t want to be part of the ongoing rumour.
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