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EFCC: You are not Fighting Corruption, Stop Deceiving Nigerians
- By Olushola Omogbehin
Apart from the recent renewal of the aged long controversy surrounding the legality of the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) as contained in the separate letters written to the Senate and the House of Representative by our vociferous legal luminary, Olisa Agbakoba, where he submitted that the commission was “unconstitutionally established”, another challenge confronting the commission to effectively fighting corruption is lack of proper prosecution and conviction of victim. This unfortunately has made the purpose of the commission to be defeated 20 years after. The mother and child analogy below captures it better.
As a mother, when your child steals a piece of meat from your pot of soup and all you do is to take the meat from him without appropriate beating or any punishment that will warn him against the danger and evil of stealing, he would not only go there next time but steal more than one piece of meat. This time, he would probably hide one in his scrotum before his mother would come and take the one in his hand leaving him with the one in his scrotal sac. As this goes on, other innocent children at home may join him when they discover he is the only one enjoying the meat in the soup that belongs to all of them without any comeuppance.
It is usually embarrassing to many Nigerians whenever EFCC comes out to say it has recovered so and so amount such as the Chairman, Ola Olukoyede recently revealed a ₦156.2 Billion naira recovery between May 2023 and May 2024 without revealing who was prosecuted and convicted. One is tempted to ask in such cases: “Is that all it requires to fighting corruption without making people responsible for their action?” Perhaps we should give corruption the name it truly bears! Regardless of the different colourations dictionary gives to corruption such as “dishonesty”, “fraudulent”, “inducement” and more, whoever takes what does not belong to him is called a thief. Any government official who privatises public funds is a thief and should be treated as one.
It is shocking to know according to a report released by The Cable on 4th May, 2024 that since the establishment of EFCC in 2003, only six among the over 33 governors prosecuted so far have been convicted. And if you ask me, I will say the six were “paddy paddy” conviction. You know why? Joshua Dariye’s trial lasted for about eight years and when he was finally sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in 2018 for breaching of trust and two years for misappropriation of public funds, he was released 4 years later on August 8, 2022 from Buhari’s presidential pardon. Jolly Nyame was charged with abuse of office and diversion of ₦1.64 billion during his tenure as governor of Taraba between 1999 and 2007. After standing trial for 11 years, he was convicted on May 30, 2018 and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. This was reduced to 12 years in 2020 after his appeal and two years later in April 2022, he was pardon by former President Buhari. I hope you are following the “paddy paddy” conviction I mentioned above?
After his impeachment in 2005, Diepreye Alamieyesigha was arrested and in July 2007 sentenced to two years in prison but was released some hours later and later got state pardon by former President Jonathan. The same can be said of Orji Kalu who was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in 2019 after being convicted of stealing ₦7.1 billion belonging to the state during his tenure. On 8th May 2020, the Supreme Court nullified his conviction and was released from Kuje prison. Attahiru Bafarawa was accused of embezzling ₦15 billion of Sokoto State fund as a governor between 1999 and 2007 but was acquitted in 2018 while the case of Ibrahim Shema of Kastina who was arraigned in 2017 for allegedly diverting ₦11 billion between 2012 and 2015 was withdrawn by the state.
Let EFCC tell Nigerians how far they have gone with the cases of Ramalan Yaro of Kaduna, Jonah Jang of Plateau, Ikedi Ohakim of Imo, Sullivan Chime of Enugun, Saminu Turaki, Danjuma Goje of Gombe, Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa, Ayodele Fayose, Chimaroke Nnamani, Timipre Sylva, Murtala Nyako, Gabriel Suswan and others. However, as this article understands that the cases of some of these people have been re-opened by EFCC, Nigerians are really eager to know how the cases would go, if it would be business as usual or how many of them Nigerian prisons would receive. If I may ask, where is Sambo Dasuki, Bashir Yuguda et al. who were indicted by a presidential committee on arms procurement set up under former President Jonathan administration to have embezzled $2.2bn meant for arm procurement? While Kayode Fayemi is still pending, Peter Odili and Rabiu Kwakwanso are all also facing out gradually.
It is in this same Nigeria that a 30 year old man named Mande Zaki stole a tuber of yam out of hunger (because he said he has never done that before) and was sentenced without delay to spend two years in Minna Correctional Centre. Another 40 year old Cletus Gandu just in August this year was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for stealing two tubers of yam and three months for criminal trespass. In October 2019, a young man called Oduola Mutiu was sentenced to three months imprisonment for stealing two goats while another Kabiru Lawal was given three months imprisonment for stealing goats and ram. While not encouraging stealing, how come these people got speedy judgment and those who stole the money that should have provided them with food and chase hunger away are walking freely? Is it always the case that corruption is like a cobweb that cashes up with the poor and get torn by the rich?
Cumulatively, in a Vanguard Newspaper report of January 20, 2022, between 2010 and 2019, EFCC received 73,948 petitions from the public. From this number, 39, 970 were investigated and the commission only filed 5,767 in court and secured only 2,544 convictions. And between 2020 and 2021, the number of conviction improved to 1, 843. In most cases, little is heard about many cases after EFCC has celebrated the arrest of suspects in the media such as we have in Yahaya Bello that will soon be swept under the carpet. Apart from the drama of subjecting high profile cases to media trial to make Nigerians believe the commission is working, what other benefit has the commission?
In October 2005 according to a THISDAY Newspaper report, Nigeria and Paris Club through the effort of former President Olusegun Obasanjo reached a final agreement of $18 billion debt relief and reduction of Nigeria’s debt stock by $30 billion but unfortunately 19 years later, Nigeria’s external debt has since crossed the $41 billion mark. Yet, we have EFCC AND ICPC as corruption watchdogs. In the global corruption index both before and after the establishment of EFCC, nothing has really changed as Nigeria is still greatly rated as one of the most corrupt nations of the world ranking 145 out of the 180 countries in the latest index. What then has been the contribution of EFCC to the nation?
In February 2023, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has added Nigeria to the list of countries that have been “grey-listed.” This means countries that are actively working with FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing. This therefore brings about the urgent need for an action plan to avoid the prospect of moving from the “Grey list” to “Black List” because as of June 2024, FATF has reviewed 133 countries and jurisdictions and 84 of them have since made necessary reforms to addressing their weaknesses. The question to be answered now is, what should we do to avoid the Bl ack list?”
As it has been observed that little is heard of any case whenever EFCC puts media visibility ahead of criminal proceedings, it has been discovered that such publicity scares away witnesses from coming forward to give information for fear of publicity and reprisal attack. It is therefore necessary for the commission to reduce media racket and focus on successful prosecution through the use of private prosecutors (if possible). This apart from reducing workload on the officials of the commission will also bring experience and independent participation.
EFCC should not bite more than what it can chew at a time. Cases presented in court for hearing should be logically and technically pursued and concluded before making fresh arrest. When this is done and cases receive proper hearing with victim successfully convicted, government officials will exercise caution. It is because of the haphazard way the commission handles cases that embolden their victims to evade arrest. This suggests that the commission should pay special attention to technical presentation of cases so as to get proficient and effectual result.
As a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Kunle Adegoke once suggested, the commission should conclude investigation before making an arrest so as not to prolong the detention of victim without trial. This will also ascertain if the offense is committed or not, or whether the evidence is capable of securing conviction. This will also facilitate court process because cases of corruption are not supposed to linger in court without conclusion. In this direction as well, the commission should avoid too much noise both in its arrest and prosecution. This means they should end the era of arresting, investigating and prosecuting only on social media and on newspapers in order to impress the public. The public can only be impressed when due diligence is done to cases.
The idea of running to the media to announce that EFCC has recovered so and so amount of money from looters without knowing the amount remaining in the hand of the victim and without prosecuting anybody, let alone convicting any, should be avoided by the commission. As Olukoyede pointed out that “I tell you, for every ₦10 stolen, you hardly recover ₦5 no matter how effective you are”, if offenders are being made to rot in jail like those who steal goat and yam regardless of their status, it will be a deterrent for others to stay away from corruption. In a release by the EFCC, the Chairman of the commission once said “we all know how difficult it is to get a high-profile conviction in this country.” There should be nothing called “high profile” in Olukoyede’s dictionary or EFCC when it comes to fighting corruption because the law is one. As no Nigerian is more Nigerian than the other, the commission should operate base on the law of the land without sentiment.
The Chairman also in an online release by the commission mentioned prevention through public enlightenment upon which Radio 97.3 FM was inaugurated by the commission and the establishment of a directorate called Fraud Risk Assessment that will monitor processes and procedure for the award of contract in various ministries and agencies of government. As lofty as this idea sounds, it is what any ministry, department and whatnot wants the commission to see or monitor that it will see. Mr Ibrahim Magu before his exit as the boss of the commission said unequivocally that there are bad eggs within EFCC that have been scuttling the fight against corruption. Has the commission rid itself of these bad eggs before going to monitor other agencies as a means of fighting corruption? Or, are there no “high profile” people in the ministries and agencies that the commission wants to monitor?
The law of the land should apply to everybody and whoever errs should be made to face the music. It is a shame to run with speed the trial of a man who steals a tuber of yam as a result of hunger and sentence him to God’s known years of imprisonment and allow the man who stole the money that should have provided him with food to move freely. As well, collecting money from fraudsters and let them go scot-free without any punishment is not the same thing as fighting corruption. Because if this is the practice, they will go by the way of the child that stole more meats so that when one is taken from him, he will enjoy the other. Therefore, victims should be prosecuted and convicted appropriately to serve as deterrent to others.
The fight must therefore begin with EFCC itself. In line with the above and as suggested by Reuben Abati in one of his articles, officials of the commission must be made to declare their assets because people fighting corruption must not live above their means, they must kill their support for politicians, they must abide by their operating manual and must not be self regulatory. That is, the commission should have an ombudsman that will help in upholding its professional ethics.
