Ibrahim Magu, the acting head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has said that he believes coronavirus is caused by corruption.
Magu, reportedly made this outlandish comment, said this at the passing out parade of 281 cadets of the EFCC Detective Inspector Course-5, at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, on Tuesday, February 18, 2020.
“Corruption is the biggest strategy to humankind,” the EFCC boss is quoted as saying, “Your excellency, corruption is worse than all the diseases now running about. And I strongly believe, Your Excellency, that even the coronavirus is caused by corruption.”
The human coronavirus was first discovered in the 1960s. Since then, there have been various outbreaks of the highly contagious pathogen. It is believed that it was passed from animals to man.
The Wuhun virus, which has been officially named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization, broke out in the Hubei province of China in December, 2019.
As of Tuesday, 2,005 people have been killed by the virus, of which 5 of these deaths are outside China. In China, 1,761 health workers have been infected, over 73,000 persons have the virus in 25 countries. The majority of the deaths occurred in Wuhun, where the virus was first detected.
The exact cause of the disease has not been determined, neither has a cure been found. Experts say a vaccine would be ready in 2023.
Magu described the fight against corruption as a crusade against the “evils in society”.
“Fighting corruption is thus a crusade against the evils of our society that are deeply rooted and threatening to consume us,” Magu said.
“We are aware of the task is not easy and the path can be very thorny and lonely, but with determination and a high sense of mission, we are making a progress towards rooting out this evil from our society
“As part of vigorous pursuit, the commission has created new specialised directorate and section taking into cognisance the changing phase of criminality,” he said.
“This directorate includes asset forfeiture and recovery management directorate, forensic and science laboratory directorate, anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism section.
“As at (sic) 2015, we had 103 convictions, in 2016,195 convictions, 314 in 2018, over 1218 convictions were secured in 2019,” he said.
