Farida Waziri denies writing Obasanjo, threatens legal action



Mrs Waziri says she never wrote Mr Obasanjo seeking help to extend her tenure.

Former chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Farida Waziri has disowned a letter she purportedly wrote asking former President Olusegun Obasanjo to intervene to allow her secure a second term.

Mrs Waziri said the letter was “total forgery” and threatened legal action against those responsible for the forgery.

“The letter is a total forgery. I had no such contact or communication with former President Obasanjo,” she told PREMIUM TIMES. “I might consider legal action against them because what they have done is criminal.”

In the letter, printed on a purported EFCC official headed paper, Mrs Waziri allegedly promised to reward the former president by turning the EFCC against his opponents and critics if he would prevail on President Goodluck Jonathan to approve a fresh term for her.

The letter was distributed to media organizations on Friday and has been published on several outlets. PREMIUM TIMES did not publish its contents because it could not immediately confirm its authenticity.

The emergence of the letter, said to have been written in the dying days of Mrs Waziri’s tenure, followed recent exchanges between former President Obasanjo and Mrs Waziri over her credibility and performance as the head of the EFCC.

In separate interviews in Zero Tolerance, a magazine published by the EFCC media unit, Mr. Obasanjo seriously questioned Mrs Waziri’s competence for the anti-corruption top job, and accused her of slowing the gains made by her predecessor, Nuhu Ribadu.

He also suggested that Mrs Waziri was appointed on the recommendation James Ibori, former governor of Delta state, currently in jail for stealing state funds.

The former EFCC boss denied the allegations and insisted she did well as head of the commission. She threatened to expose Mr Obasanjo’s shady past.

The sender of the letter she allegedly wrote to Mr Obasanjo made it clear the note was in response to the threat to expose Mr Obasanjo. He did not respond to further mails.

In the memo, Mrs Waziri purportedly said she could not telephone the ex-president for security concerns due to the nature of her request. She then asked Mr Obasanjo to “compel” President Jonathan to allow her continue in office, promising to go after former governor of Ogun state, Gbenga Daniel, for insulting Mr Obasanjo.

To press her point, she recalled the treatment of former House of Representatives speaker, Dimeji Bankole, by the EFCC purportedly as a reaction to Mr Bankole’s disrespect for the former president.

Mrs Waziri disclaimed the content of the letter and accused a “corrupt US-based lawyer and a UK-based blogger” of colluding to forge the letter and circulating it on the Internet.

I have it on good authority that in the past one week the President signed or authorized the payment of 12 billion dollars to the PDP Governors that are supporting him. I had tried to know exactly what that money was meant to achieve. And it seems these were payments that would go to these Governors individually. In other words, this was not some allocation to their states. Obviously, the President had to do this to keep these Governors from turning their back on him as others have done. If the President is doing this to keep the Governors loyal, he must be doing a lot more dangerous things to try to remain in power. There would be a lot more happening and more money being moved to loyalists as vast war chest to fight to stay in power.”

webdezzi: the document is obviously fake.
no one puts such political statements into writings using an official letter head of the commission
with name and signature.

the composition itself seem like it was composed by an SS2 student.
It's easy to conjure anything these days with photoshop.

Chinaimporter: [size=18pt]I love this country so much every day is a drama. Whenever i a bored of sitting on my japanese peacock feather couch in my ikoyi waterfront mansion watching luciano pavaroti and ivete sangalo on my 100 inches maximuim defination samsung tv sipping a double xo richelieu cognac,wearing my cool hugo boss cashmere sweater and on my laps sits my 19 yrs old mixed race(multiple cocktail),hour glassed shaped barbadian beauty, i just get into my pegusas italy built luxury yacht and read nigerian newspapers just to laugh and wonder at the life of the poor men and women of nigeria who work for a living because there pappas never made it.[/size]

oyb:

i'd love to believe you, but stranger things have happened in our FG - its not exactly a beacon of bright bulbs

Why I sacked Farida Waziri – Jonathan

September 12, 2013
...

“When I give you a job, I will give you time to do it. Assuming somebody, who is heading an agency that is supposed to handle corruption, is not doing that and says it is because of the President’s body language, that person is not competent.
“I am one Nigerian that has the privilege of holding this office that gives these people the latitude to do their work.

....

“I am happy that Nigerians have confidence in EFCC and in its chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde and I also have confidence in him.
“I have no personal relationship with Lamorde. He even investigated me while I was the governor of Bayelsa State. But I have confidence in him, given his track record.

“Of course, there was a lady who was there. There were lots of complaints. Some may be right, some may be wrong, but perception matters so much when handling matters like corruption.

“The confidence of the people must be there. I had to remove her and that does not mean that she is guilty of the allegations, but because I saw that Nigerians no longer had confidence in her.” ...

PHIPEX: I guess we are in for another round of purported exposures.

Round 1: Femi Fani kayode Vs Bianca

Round 2: Olusegun Obasanjo Vs Farida Waziri

Incidentally both have a threat of legal action, let's see if we will see another public apology from he who first cast the stone. Funny enough it is always a man against a woman.

gratiaeo:
This is serious
The whole world have see their lying altitude (their willing tools)

martyns303: Baba use to be the man, now he's just being a Nuisance.

webdezzi: the document is obviously fake.
no one puts such politically implicating statements into writings using an official letter head of the commission
with name and signature intact.

A letter head means the letter is from the Office and not Waziri
and the issue discussed there in more of a tea-time discussion

Our media houses obviously will go to great heights to make news, even when they know it isn't authentic
It's easy to conjure anything these days with photoshop.

me_for_you: The only reason I say the letter is fake is bcause, how can she put it in writing that it's better for her to write than to call to make the request.
When we all know it's better to call than to write on such issue