Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu has said oil thieves in the Niger Delta will find it tough to sabotage Nigeria’s economy through their nefarious acts, stating that the agency will not relent in fighting it.

Magu who was in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital gave the warning during a working visit to Zonal Office of the Commission, warning the illegal oil thieves in the Niger Delta to desist from acts of oil theft and economic sabotage.

“Let me also use this medium to warn all illegal oil bunkers to desist from their nefarious operations. The EFCC is resolute in its fight against economic sabotage and oil theft.

“The Niger Delta is highly significant to our national economy and the Commission will continue to do all that is lawful and patriotic in ensuring that operators of illegal oil bunkering are brought to book.”

The EFCC Chairman also paid an inspection visit to the 6th Division, Nigerian Army in Port Harcourt, where vehicles forfeited to the Federal Government by illegal oil dealers are being parked. Magu explained that all the forfeited vehicles belong to the Federal Government and the processes for their auction are still ongoing.

“All the vehicles forfeited belong to the government. The processes are ongoing. We are following processes stated in the Procurement Act. We are not hiding anything. All the vehicles auctioned are still there. The auction processes continue until payments and reconciliation are made,” he said.

He rated Rivers as the state with the second highest number of laundering cases in the country.

Lagos beats Rivers to the top spot as the state with the highest number of money laundering cases.

Magu vowed that the judgement stopping the commission from investigating the State governors of economic crimes will soon be quashed.

The EFCC boss, who said the Commission will leave nothing upturned to track and expose every form of criminal activities in the country, also blamed the huge oil deposit nature of the state for the high level of economic and financial crimes cases in the place but noted that the agency will leave nothing undone to ensure that this ugly situation was reduced, if not eradicated.

He said: “I think Rivers State is the next to Lagos in terms of crime, this is the headquarter of money laundering, because there is a lot of oil money, bunker money here.

“I think you can rate Port Harcourt the second to maybe Lagos when you talk of people playing with sinking, diving, hiding, maybe because of the large space of oil deals.

“Nothing is going to stop us, even the issue of the court order allegedly obtained by Dr Peter Odili and co to stop the EFCC from investigation and prosecution has been overtaken by event even though the matter is still at the supreme we on it.

“I am telling you that, that judgement cannot stand, it will only take sometime it cannot hold and we are going to conclude the investigation.

“There are so many investigation we are doing, we will take it before the court, let the court refuse to prosecute their case. I am sure the matter has suffered for about 13 years now. We are going to test it, the matter is in the supreme Court, we will follow it up.

“That decision that is pending in the supreme Court does not actually, cannot hold water again. There are subsequent judgement that has discarded it. Clearly, there are other judgement that came up and said nobody, not even the judge, not even the Judiciary, not even the court can stop us from investigating and prosecuting”.