Time To Review The EFCC Act (1)

In December, 2022, Olisa Agba­koba, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), cast a reflection on the conduct of the Economic and Finan­cial Crimes Commission (EFCC), noting that the agency lacked the constitutional power to probe the finances of a state government....CONTINUE READING

Agbakoba expressed his criti­cism of the Commission’s inves­tigation into the finances of Kogi State: “If I were the lawyer to the Kogi State Government, what I would do is to go to court and tell the court that as a result of the Supreme Court’s judgment, the EFCC does not have the power to demand that we should pro­vide documents or give them our accounting books. If we have lost money, we are the ones to complain and if we are not com­plaining or we are complicit in any fraud, then the appropriate agency to handle it is the ICPC or the state House of Assembly.”

Agbakoba further stated that if the EFCC wanted to expand the scope of its functions, “they must go to the National Assem­bly to do so”. According to the Senior Counsel, “The Supreme Court has recently said in one of its judgments that the EFCC cannot be a jack of all trades and that they should concentrate on what the law empowers them to do under Section 46 of their Act. It is not the duty of the EFCC to be chasing the Kogi State Government and threatening to storm the state House of Assem­bly to seize documents or harass the Accountant-General of the state. What the EFCC is current­ly doing is turning itself into a one-man Robin Hood riot gang. That must not be allowed…”

In its swift reply through Wilson Uwujaren, Head of Media and Publicity, the EFCC de­nounced what it described as an “attempt by Agbakoba to dress it in the borrowed garb of a law­less entity and a meddlesome interloper, who has no business probing the stealing of Kogi State resources.”

According to the anti-graft agency, “It is important to state that contrary to the views of Agbakoba, the Supreme Court at no time delivered any judgement which forbids the EFCC from investigating fraud cases involv­ing a state government.” It cited the 2010 ruling of the appellate court in a case involving Jolly Nyame, a former governor of Taraba State, where the apex court declared that the “claim that the money belongs to Tara­ba State and that the state has exclusive claim on it to the exclu­sion of any other authority by virtue of Section 120 of the 1999 Constitution cannot stand.”

The EFCC went further: “Ag­bakoba’s erroneous views ought to be tempered by the decision of the Supreme Court in At­torney General, Ondo State v. Attorney General, Federation (2002) 9 NWLR [pt.772] 222 at page 308, where the Honourable Court held: ‘It has been pointed out that the provisions of the Act impinge on the cardinal principle of federalism, namely the requirement of equality and autonomy of the state govern­ment and non-interference with the functions of state govern­ment. This is true, but as seen above, both the federal and state governments share the power to legislate in order to abolish cor­ruption and abuse of office. If this is a breach of the principle of federalism, then, I am afraid, it is the Constitution that makes the provisions that have facilitat­ed the breach of the principle…’”

“From the decisions of the Appellate Court, it is clear that whilst the state assemblies can investigate finances of their states, they are not empowered to investigate and prosecute fraud cases; that responsibility lies with agencies such as the EFCC,” the agency said.

The EFCC opined that it was “morally reprehensible” for Mr Agbakoba to “promote the view that state governments cannot be questioned on how they use the resources of their states, and that law enforcement organisa­tions cannot investigate cases of alleged wanton theft of Kogi State’s resources, particularly where the alleged thieves do not report themselves!”

The EFCC’s statement conclud­ed: “Why is Agbakoba so jittery about the robust response of the EFCC to corruption that he would openly incite the next adminis­tration against the Commission? That essentially was the agenda when he said: ‘So the candidate (2023 election candidates) must tell us what they are going to do with all these agencies because we need to know if they are going to allow the EFCC to continue to engage in media trials and carry on as the attack dog of the federal government against other arms and levels of governments…’ What is a media trial, when a case has been filed in court and the defendants have taken their pleas? Should Nigerians have been kept in the dark that a certain nephew of Yahaya Bello is facing a N10billion fraud trial? EFCC is not averse to criticisms but it will not ignore jaundiced views masked as advocacy for the rule of law. No amount of intim­idation and sponsored attacks will deter the Commission from investigating cases of corruption at any level of government, or involving any individual howev­er well placed, until we rid our nation of this monster.”