Online media
Newspapers
It commenced investigations into various cases of abuse of office, official corruption, bribery of government
officials, diversion of public funds through fraudulent award of contracts, corruption in land allocation, tax
fraud, capital market fraud, Money laundering, Oil Bunkering etc.

Within the first few months of its existence, Nuhu Ribadu and his band of crime fighters showed glimpses of
possible greatness in their future by going after different categories of fraud with a lot of energy and
enthusiasm. It also went after some big names that were previously thought to be untouchables in the
country. Fraudsters like Ade Bendel and corrupt government officials like former governor of Bayelsa state
were brought to book with loud cheering from a public that has almost lost hope of reversing the escalating
incidents of fraud in the country. It also made significant progress in the assets recovery drive though
Nigerians really do not know what happened to those assets. The EFCC also hounded some economic
pirates out of this country into the waiting hands of international police agencies.

However, in recent times, Nigerians are no longer sure that the EFCC they are witnessing now was the same
EFCC they had hoped for. There is a rapidly emerging view that the mission of the EFCC has been perverted
by the politicians and corruption among the leaders of the crime fighting force. The EFCC is rapidly losing its
favor with the people because of perceived bias and political selection of its accused persons.

Based on the observed activities of the EFCC, many now firmly believe that the EFCC is no longer an
impartial prosecutor of criminals but a political tool for persecuting political opponents and other politicians
who have fallen out of favor with the government. While the EFCC always appeared eager to go after political
opponents of the government, it appeared to be blind, deaf and dumb to corruption among the ruling elite.
Some have questioned its failure to investigate many financial crimes associated with some members of the
ruling party and crimes committed by those who are close to the government in the case of the capital
market collapse, and fraudulent acquisition of shares by some big boys close to the president.

The issue of sensationalisation of trials, or what is now called ‘trial by newspaper’, has further robbed EFCC
of most of its remaining credibility with the public. For instance, we observed several cases like that of
Gbenga Daniel who was widely reported, and paraded before Nigerians for stealing over N53 BILLION, only for
us to find out that the EFCC did not have any evidence to back up those claims. When the EFCC finally filed
new charges against Gbenga Daniel, after the initial charges were dismissed by the court, all they could
finally charge him with were some counts of improper allocation of land and some ridiculous charges of
kickbacks from contractors. The total charges filed against him now claimed N211 Million was stolen, and
not the N53Billion. Yet, Gbenga Daniel was paraded before Nigerians and the Press with confidence that he
had stolen N53 billions from Ogun State. The Press push on him by EFCC was so strong to the point where
many Nigerians now believe he had actually been convicted of stealing N53 billion. As bad as this looks, it
was not an isolated case. EFCC has made ‘trial by newspaper’ a definitive strategy for persecuting perceived
criminals.

People were also further upset at the colossal waste of government money by EFCC in parading many SANs
against defendants, when only one could do the job, or maybe even a good non-SAN lawyer. We all observed
with dismay how the federal high court judge dismissed all charges against Erastus Akingbola because the
prosecutors hired by EFCC, who were Senior Advocates Of Nigeria, did not appear to know what to do in
prosecuting their case against Akingbola, and kept asking for needless adjournments. This incident is just
one more example of how far EFCC has lost grip with the realities of what it takes to combat the crimes it
was charged to investigate and prosecute.

Furthermore, the little goodwill that EFCC has remaining with the people have been further eroded with the
perception that many of its operatives are corrupt and living large with unfathormable sources of income to
sustain the lavish houses and cars they drive. Many of the EFCC investigators who were supposedly on a
salary from the federal government could not hide their lavish lifestyles that were totally incompatible with the
salaries they were being paid. Many Nigerians have watched this development and came to the heartbreaking
conclusion that our crime fighters have gone rogue and actually joined forces with the criminals they were
supposed to prosecute.

The level of public dissatisfaction with the performance of EFCC has suddenly given rise to a national debate
on whether the agency should be merged with the existing police structure or scrapped altogether. Many
respected jurists, public commentators and public figures have openly called for the abrogation of EFCC in
the wake of their unsatisfactory performance so far. Those who are calling for their proscription have pointed
to the colossal amounts of money spent by the agency with very little to show for it in over 10 years. Many
have pointed out the fact that though the EFCC often made lots of noise in newspapers and television
houses, they have had very little to show for their verbosity in terms of actual convictions. Many find it
unacceptable that in over 10 years of operation, the agency cannot count up to 10 high profile convictions of
corrupt public officials in the law courts. The spate of the embarrassing dismissals of its cases in recent
times for various reasons by the courts have further strengthened the sentiments that Nigeria should cut its
losses with this crime fighting agency and look for alternatives. Considering the paltry tangible results we
have seen, it is very difficult to argue with this growing sentiment.

However, Mr Lamorde, the new helmsman at EFCC has come out openly to admit that there is wide-scale
fraud in EFCC itself and he vowed to put an end to it. He has since backed it up by implementing some
policies to show he means business. He has arrested some of EFCC officials suspected of corruption. He
has put three of them on trial and he has promised to investigate the lifestyles of EFCC operatives. He also
promised to introduce lie detector tests for its officers and compel everyone, including himself, to take those
tests every 6 months.

All this is well and good and we congratulate Mr. Lamorde on at least confronting the issues in his house.
However, in order for him to convince us that EFCC can still be our frontline force in combating crimes in this
country, the EFCC needs to step up its game and avoid the embarrassing sensational newspaper based
trials that have come to be the order of the day in that agency. They need to investigate and get concrete
facts in place BEFORE arresting anybody so that their cases do not get compromised. An agency that
arrests a citizen first before looking for the evidence against him or her, as the EFCC is currently doing, is
NOT deserving of any respect or support from its citizens.

The EFCC needs to critically look at its present modus operandi and make wholesale changes it ever hopes
to get the respect and support of Nigerians. It needs to seriously look at its procedure for hiring external
attorneys to prosecute its cases and find better ways to hold those overpaid Senior Advocates of Nigeria it
favours accountable for results in their prosecutions.

To further make strengthen its staff to carry out the onerous jobs of going after some of the most powerful
criminals this side of the Atlantic, the EFCC must also review its procedures for hiring new staff while it must
critically look at incentives for its operatives to make it harder for them to be corrupted by the criminals they
are investigating. The truth we must all acknowledge is that it is very easy for a staff earning N200,000 a
month to be corrupted by a criminal who has stolen billions of Naira unless that operative is properly
motivated to the point where it is very difficult for them to corrupted. For instance, why not pay the operatives
a commission of any loot recovered from any criminal in addition to their normal salaries? In order words, I
believe it will be very difficult to bribe an investigator who knows he will be paid 5% or 10% of the amount
recovered from a convicted criminal. While this may appear unusual, the truth is that we are already
swimming deep in unusual waters of corruption in this country. An operative who knows he starts to get a
billion naira in commission will be very difficult to buy by the person being investigated.

Furthermore, the EFCC will need to show us they are not political hound dogs against the opposition, or of
people who have fallen out of favor with the government, by prosecuting some of the sacred cows who have
been implicated in some of the developing scandals in recent times, including the oil subsidy cabal and the
pension band of thieves.


THAT IS MY MEMO FOR THE WEEK

Barrister Ope Banwo, The Ombudsman, is an Attorney, Public Commentator, Business Consultant, Author, and
Motivational Speaker. He is the initiator of the Market Ombudsman and the Founder of the syndicated Ombudsman
Show on Television networks. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Email: opebanwo@aol.com Tel: 07066482753
| More
Comments posted on this site are moderated. Avoid abusive, rude or vulgar words. -Editor, African Examiner
blog comments powered by Disqus
Leave a comment
News, Politics, Sports
about Nigeria and all Africa
Get our News Update fast,
download  AE Toolbar!
Click here to download Now!
____________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
African Examiner
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Copyrights © 2007  All Rights Reserved African Examiner Online is owned by RD Frontline LLC, a state of Maryland registered company
P. O. Box 11582 Baltimore, Maryland, 21229, USA Tel: 443-904-1239. Editor-In-Chief: Oludare Sunday Fase
The Ombudsman Memo
By Dr. Ope Banwo, (Attorney-At-Law)
OMUDSMAN MEMO OF THE WEEK

The EFCC At a Crossroad –
The Rapidly Disappearing Status of A once
Fearsome Crime-Fighting Force

When President Olusegun Obasanjo announced the
formation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) in 2001, many Nigerians were cautiously optimistic
that perhaps the government was finally getting serious in its
fight against corruption in Nigeria. As of 2001, corruption had
become a major source of concern for most Nigerians. On
the global level, the reputation of Nigeria as a nation of
economic crime specialists in the comity of nations was also
a constant source of embarrassment and shame for many
Nigerians. Our country was the butt of jokes in talk shows
and government circles all over the world. It was clear that
something had to be done quickly to combat the rising
incidents of 419 and official corruption. So, understandably,
many Nigerians were excited at the formation of this crime
fighting force.

As its formation, the EFCC was empowered to investigate
and prosecute economic and financial crimes. The enabling
law creating the EFCC gave it very wide powers to deal with
economic and fraud crimes with specific references to
enforce the provisions of laws and regulations relating to
economic and financial crimes, including: Economic &
Financial Crimes Commission Establishment Act (2004), The
Money Laundering Act 1995, The Money Laundering
(Prohibition) act 2004, The Advance Fee Fraud and Other
Fraud Related Offences Act, The Failed Banks and Financial
Malpractices in Banks Act 1994, The Banks and other
Financial Institutions Act 1991, and  the Miscellaneous
Offences Act.

To give serious bite to the bark about a new dawn in
economic crime fighting in the country, President Obasanjo
went ahead and appointed a hard-charging, no-nonsense
policeman as the head of this new crime fighting force in the
person of Nuhu Ribadu. This energetic crime fighter took the
EFCC out of the block with a lot of noise and fanfare by
putting the fear of God in the financial crimes underworld.  He
talked tough and backed it up arresting some big names in
the advanced fee fraud crime underworld against initial
expectations. In his prime, those who had received a visit
from him or his boys would tell you, the fear of Ribadu is the
beginning of wisdom.

Initially, under Ribadu, the EFCC was quite effective in
carrying out its statutory roles and its activities constantly
made newspaper headlines with Nigerians urging him on to
rid our nation of fraudsters and corrupt government officials.
The EFCC got very busy by investigating and prosecuting
many cases of advance fee fraud and obtaining by false
pretenses e.g. internet scam, bank guarantee scam, contract
scam, credit card scam, inheritance marriage scam,
immigration scam, counterfeiting, and religious scam. It also
expanded its operation to investigate many fraud related
cases involving banks and other financial institutions,
bounced cheques, foreign exchange malpractices and other
species of fraud.