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Anti-Graft War: Between EFCC and Drumbeats of Unholy Infiltration By Ifeanyi Izeze
The problem with this country is that the gulf between good concepts and their implementations is so wide that majority of the uninformed citizenry take it for granted that no good concept can honestly be implemented by anything called government agency- be it federal, state or local. Anybody who is not disturbed by this retrogressive trait that is messing up good ideas of governance in this country cannot from the heart of his heart say: I am proud to be a Nigerian.
Honestly, it is very difficult to actually pin the actual origin of this problem. Could it be the sincerity or rather insincerity of the people who call themselves our leaders, civil servants inclusive? Could it also be the sincerity or otherwise of the conscription called the Nigerian state or could it just be outright/inbreed selfishness of the people who tend to be in government or very close to people in government?
All clear minded and honest Nigerians should be disturbed by a recent media report (Nation of Sunday 12th October) that a gang headed by two people very close to government- a former governor and a ‘businessman’ are coercing people with serious cases to answer with the EFCC especially some ex-governors and incumbent ones to pay huge sums of money (even in foreign currency) as baits to avert prosecution for mismanaging public funds while in office.
It is even more disturbing that these two well-known but masked name peddlers had allegedly made some ex-governors and incumbent ones to believe that they are allies of the EFCC boss, Mrs. Farida Waziri, and could sway her opinion on any case before her agency.
What financial crime is worse than the peddling of the name of the chairman of a nation’s anti-graft agency for huge monetary gains? This is the question the EFCC itself should answer.
The annoying aspect of all this is that even the EFCC was unable (or pretends to be) to even detect the activities of these influence peddlers even within its own system. Haba! Something is missing here. There is a very serious gap in this arrangement.
How come that two well known people who should actually be investigated for fraud – Obtaining by Tricks (OBT) are the ones blackmailing other culprits (former and incumbent government officials) with threat of probe and conviction using their closeness to the EFCC boss as an alibi? There is something not very straight in the entire set up.
The report that brought this strange happening around the EFCC had it that, “The EFCC chairman has been very careful. A former governor had once warned Waziri to beware of any close link with the ‘businessman’.
“Although the EFCC chairman does not want to be seen as disrespectful, she had not been picking strange calls, including those from the businessman.”
Very good! From the above statements, it is very clear that the EFCC Chairman knows and may have been dealing with these alleged influence peddlers particularly the so-called ‘businessman’. The Chairman must have known that the ‘businessman’ has a grey character for her to decide avoiding his calls, if that is true.
And for a former governor to forewarn the new EFCC chairman on the antics of this influential ‘businessman’ equally means that this same man is not new in his business with government people. He must have successfully practiced this act of blackmail, name peddling and extortion since the days of the former leadership of the anti-graft agency. Alternatively, Nigerians maybe forced to infer that he started the business with the appointment of the new leadership of the EFCC.
Question: a businessman with such credentials, is he not supposed to have been covertly investigated, arrested and/or prosecuted?
It was relieving to hear the Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Femi Babafemi say (as reported) that “I know that the Chairman of the EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, is aware that some people are using the name of the commission for some selfish reasons and this she is not taking lightly. This is why we are presently running some advertisements in the media to alert the public about the activities of these criminals.
“Hotlines have also been provided for people to give information that would enable the commission to close in on these people.”
However, there is a very big lacuna in the EFCC’s self defense: Most of the corrupt former government officials and those still serving, and other people with cases in the anti-graft agency obviously may be aware that this ‘businessman’ and the ex-governor have the capacity (as claimed) to actually influence their cases and juggle issues within the EFCC. So it is very natural that such culprits especially former governors and other government officials would easily be convinced (going by the track records of this influential businessman) to play along with his blackmails and extortions.
It is a very simple logic. If I had a case last year and a man said: just give me this amount of money to save you. I gave him the amount he asked for and he actually delivered as promise so why won’t I believe that he is a very influential person that working in the system as an insider.
Moreso, it has been alleged that this businessman and sometimes the ex-governor cook up trump charges in collaboration with EFCC staff to harass perceived corrupt ex-government officials, some incumbents and other businessmen.
Although this allegation may be very difficult to establish, the curious question is: how come this ‘businessman’ is well informed on all the weighty corruption cases being investigated by the EFCC? The agency’s investigations are supposed to be closely guarded secrets performed under strict covert operations. So how come that an outsider (this influential businessman) has full knowledge of such cases even before the agency makes it public by arresting the targets?
This alleged trend is more serious than the EFCC is making Nigerians believe. It bothers on the credibility of the agency and should not just be dismissed with a wave of the hand as concerned Nigerians are keenly watching.
The truth is that the new leadership of the EFCC if serious with the assignment should urgently carry out a thorough house searching exercise. The bigger part of the problem lies inside the agency at all levels of its staff. This is the truth and obviously may not go down well with officials of the agency but that cannot change the truth. A word is enough for a wise.
IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT ON POLITICAL STRATEGY AND GRASSROOT CONSULTATION (iizeze@yahoo.com) |