Tuesday December 20, 2011 – Ibrahim Lamorde, the calm, cheerful, but tough cop, whom President Goodluck Jonathan fittingly named Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), following the removal of Mrs. Farida Waziri, turned 49.
An assistant commissioner of police who has packed so much into a lifetime of dedication to service with personal humility and self-effacing signature, Lamorde’s eventful life’s journey is yet unfolding with promises of a fulfilling trajectory of career aspirations. With just one foot at the door of a well-deserved golden jubilee, he knows that destiny beckons to the attainment of loftier goals in the service of his fatherland.
The ground for this positive affirmation was captured in one rare but wise judgment of President Jonathan who clearly has seen in Lamorde a hardworking, efficacious, and patriotic officer good enough for his administration’s resolve to stamp out the ugly face of corruption from the whole gamut of Nigerian life.
Spartan, soft-spoken, and not quite wont to indulgent celebrations of any kind, as his very close associates and family members far and near would attest, Lamorde had no time to spare entertaining anyone last Tuesday.
Truly, for once, one earnest public official in his conduct and body language, is reflecting the mood of the nation, by having both hands, literally, on the baton to engage the evil but formidable Nigerian corruption cartel. It is an engagement that calls for urgency and decisiveness. No doubt, he is mentally, physically, and professionally equipped to confront the dragon of corruption and associated crimes that continue to give Nigeria a bad image globally. Most observers also believe that the methodology, the how, of getting the job done, also matters.
We have seen it before. He is not a newcomer to the anti-graft agency. He functioned effectively as Director of Operations, as the unseen investigator and strategist, contributed stoutly to the widely acclaimed achievements of the iconic Nuhu Ribadu era. In fact, he was the next-in-command then and was crucial to the cracking of the daredevilry of the many celebrated corruption cases of that period. Name it: from Alamieyesigha through Dariye to Ibori; and, even up to cases in the private sector like the Anajemba, Nwude and Okoli’s egregious bank frauds, Lamorde was pivotal to the phenomenal string of successes registered then by the EFCC.
His position was so assured and his competence unassailable that when the exemplary Ribadu was eased out as Chairman, Lamorde was promptly made to act in his stead. Lamorde’s second coming as Acting Chairman is one appointment which many observers in the circle of anti-graft war have hailed to no end, mostly for good reasons. Even when this has restored a tad of confidence in the EFCC, it has also raised immense expectations regarding the level of performance the Nigerian populace desire from the ascetic and tough cop. Of course, a man with a rich mixture of academic pedigree and professional training and accomplishments as Lamorde’s can hardly be ignored in the effort to re-engineer Nigeria’s broken society.
A tough cop and law enforcer with proven record for spotting the flouters of our statutes and ensuring due diligence in the public service, Lamorde sure knows his onions. He was a pioneer officer of Special Fraud Unit and has also had stints with world acclaimed security agencies, such as Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, Metropolitan Police, United States Postal Inspection Services, Internet Crime Complaints Centre, the Dutch Police, German Police, and the South African Police, among many others.
Besides, to his credit is his undiluted patriotism. Here is a man who was offered a job by the United States Secret Service to head their anti-fraud unit in Lagos, but he turned it down because he preferred to continue to serve his country in the Nigerian Police. Little wonder then, the sudden but not unanticipated call to duty by President Jonathan tallied with Lamorde’s natural disposition towards his country. Thankfully, he has promised friends, well-wishers, family and his compatriots that he would strive to surpass the achievements of his predecessors through a comprehensive result-oriented restructuring of the agency.
We believe him, for beneath that façade of geniality is a hard-nosed police officer whom the Jonathan administration, and corporate and individual Nigerians at large, would be grateful to in the end. In a significant move to break away from the Farida Waziri era, the very first thing that Lamorde did (only 24 hours after accepting Waziri’s handover notes) was to charge a corrupt policeman attached to EFCC to court.
Waziri had sat on the case for over two months. Even though she was in clear contravention of the constitution (and her oft-professed adherence to the Rule of Law), Mrs. Waziri would not prosecute a fraudulent David Lobhut, a former policeman against whom an irrefutable case of extortion and corruption had been established. She was obviously pondering what to do with him, even though the weight of evidence gathered by investigators against him had convinced the Nigeria Police to dismiss the man!
In further demonstration of his zero tolerance for corruption within the EFCC under him, Lamorde has publicly acknowledged that EFCC has suffered monumental credibility damage and he has started to do something about that. In meetings with foreign envoys –British, American, and German and with members of the House of Representatives and Senators, as well as with the Board, management and staff of the Commission, Lamorde has had the same message: he would deploy everything within his power, including lie detector machines, to tackle corruption within the EFCC.
It is anticipated that the polygraph machines would be deployed over the next few weeks. As he instructively declared, at a meeting with the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, “For us to really move forward, the Commission needs internal cleansing. Things have really gone wrong. We must deal with ourselves before we can deal with others outside.”
Will the powers-that-be, including the President and the Attorney General, support him and give him a free hand to fulfill his mandate? We know it’s tough luck for the tough cop, as we wish him a happy birthday and a fulfilling tenure as head of the EFCC.
Chiedu Ezeanah is chief executive of Paradigm-City Publishing, Abuja; Godwin Onyeacholem, is Editor, Giraffe, Abuja
