The EFCC recently gave a clean bill of health to Umar in a bid to rest the alleged N10 million brib­ery scan-dal the CCT boss was enmeshed in. The rights group has, therefore, challenged the hierarchy of the ant-graft agency to a public and me­dia covered debate in Abu­ja so that all parties could present to Nigerians the merits or demerits of “this hur-riedly packaged soft-landing EFCC extended to Umar who is caught in the midst of the politically charged persecution of Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki.” HURIWA has also pil­loried the EFCC for with­drawing the anti-graft am­bassadorial award to the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, under pressure from its princi­pals. In a statement jointly signed by the National Co­ordinator, Comrade Em­manuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Di­rector, Miss Zainab Yusuf, over the weekend, HURI­WA said, “This EFCC that only pursues the Direc­tors of PDP’s Presiden­tial Campaign Organisa­tion but looks the other way regarding how the APC deployed their own multi-billion Naira cam­paign funds, is surely po­litically tainted and must be reformed to give it the needed independence and freedom from executive interference.” According to HURIWA, “The so-called clearance extended to Mr Danladi Umar which was released to the media to coincide with the processes filed before the Code of Con­duct Tribunal by a party challenging his ethical qualifications to continue to preside over the Code of Conduct Tribunal are sus­picious, to put it mildly.” Ibrahim Alhassan, Spokesman of the tribunal had said that the EFCC sent a letter to the tribunal on last Wednesday clear­ing the CCT Chairman of the allegation.]]>