•As anti- graft commission vows to take legal action
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has reacted to story of alleged assault by the commission’s officers on one upcoming actress that is presently trending online as false claim.
The budding actress took to Instagram to narrate how she was beaten up and brutalised by some officers of EFCC in Enugu State after they invaded her home at midnight.
According to the video evidence posted, blood could be seen gushing from her head and also some bruises on her body.
But the commission in its release on Saturday described the claim of attack by the actress as bad scripted story attempted to portray EFCC’s officers in bad light while it threatened to take legal action.
Below is official press statement from EFCC
EFCC PRESS STATEMENT
False and Misleading Video in Circulation on EFCC Operations
The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has been drawn to an online video trending on Instagram, from the handle of a certain “@Iamhelenaduru”, a self- styled actress, purporting, quite mischievously, an assault by operatives of the Commission.
Checks by the Commission, however, flagged Helen Aduru, an upcoming actress, as a mere publicity-seeking player, with a poorly- scripted claim that has fallen flat in the face of unassailable facts available to the Commission.
In her script, she was quick to include five names of officers she claimed came from the Cybercrime Section of the Enugu Command of the Commission. Characteristically, EFCC’s officers don’t wear name tags nor move around with bulldozer- shaped equipment to pull down security doors.
Aduru claimed, rather strangely, that she was assisted by a little boy, to a Police Station at 3:44 am but met the station shut. It is important to note that Police Stations are not civil service ministries that “close” in the evening. Even more preposterous is the fact that she never went back, at daybreak, to lodge a complaint. More poignantly untenable is the fact that her purported assault of July 21, 2022, which has not been logged nearly two months later at the Police Station is only being brought to public glare on September 2, 2022!! Such a scene could only stand on a typical Nollywood fiction series.
Such claims by Aduru, like all other stranger- than- fiction, click-baiting, sympathy-seeking ploys, do not merit a response but for the need to avoid “silence is acquiescence” stance of mischief makers. Deeper checks on the matter only showed that, certain blackmailers could be bandying some known names in the Enugu Zonal Command to settle some scores.
The Commission, strictly guided by its Standard Operational Procedure, would not succumb to blackmail or any sleight of hand by any character. The poorly-scripted video would be further analysed for more forensic details and possible legal action to dissuade those who seem to be making an industry of falsely accusing and maligning the Commission. Members of the public are enjoined to ignore Aduru’s claims. EFCC’s officers are not assaulters or terrorists.
