EFCC

EFCC: The Number of Charges Don’t Count

Abdulazeez Abdullahi

The previous week did not end the way Mrs. Farida Waziri and her men at the Econimic and Financial Crimes Commission {EFCC} would have wanted it to and in my opinion, they have themselves to blame. Succeeding in arresting and arraigning the former Sokoto State Governor Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa at the state high court may have seem the perfect start for the week in their effort the reign in corrupt officials both in and out of government but their bubble was soon to burst with the events that transpired at the Federal High Court, Asaba, Delta State, which saw the discharge and acquittal of that state’s former governor, James Ibori.

When Mrs. Waziri took charge upon the inception of the present government, she certainly was aware that she indeed had a tough act to follow if she was to carry on the battle against corrupt officials with the same gusto as her predecessor, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who though many would be quick to fault the manner of his approach to doing his job, left no one in doubt at the end of the day that indeed some forward movement was made in this all important fight. During the Obasanjo era – his second coming that is – the mantra then especially among the political class was that the fear of Ribadu was the beginning of wisdom as erstwhile state governors like Joshua Dariye of Plateau, Dipreye Alameiseygha of Bayelsa, to name a few, would testify.

As Ribadu went about his assignment, not only was approach questioned by many concerned Nigerians as was the case in his rabid pursuit of Joshua Dariye which saw the EFCC flagrantly violating court orders to achieve its objective, many also pointed accusing fingers at the financial crimes body over the way it was seemingly high jacked by and glaringly acting the script of the Obasanjo government. It had been said, and with good reason too, that those who were in the bad books of the former president inexplicably ended up as the targets of the EFCC. Most notable among these of course was the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, who found himself fighting the battle of his life not only to actualize his dream of ruling Nigeria but also to simply remain in office till the expiration of the tenure of the administration he was serving. It took the courage of the Judiciary which ensured that the sanctity of the constitution was not violated by officers whose motives were at best self serving for Atiku to emerge the presidential flag bearer of Action Congress and end his tenure along side his boss, President Obasanjo.

Waziri’s tenure, which started at what many observers described as snail speed, was jump started by the upheavals in the banking industry occasioned by the sacking of some bank managing directors and their boards by the Central Bank of Nigeria. That was when Nigerians began to see some sort of life breathed into the anti corruption war. Some of the sacked bank chiefs like Cecilia Ibru, Sebastian Adigwe, and Francis Atuche of Oceanic Bank, Afribank and Bank PHB respectively were quickly arrested by the EFCC and are currently standing trial for their roles in the near collapse of the banks the headed. The question some observers had been asking was: what would the EFCC have been up to had the CBN not given it work to do?

It was therefore a bit of a surprise when Nigerians woke up to the news that the EFCC had picked up the former Sokoto state governor who was at the time of his arrest at a meeting of opposition leaders which he and the former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari and Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar were spear heading. In fact feelers from that meeting were that there was a debate amongst the opposition leaders as to the course of action to be taken by those at the meeting after Bafarawa had alerted them of the presence of the anti corruption officials stationed outside the venue of the meeting waiting to pick him up. The former vice president had insisted that the opposition leaders all troop out and be arrested in solidarity with Bafarawa, but Buhari’s view which was that the former Sokoto governor goes along with his lawyers to the EFCC headquarters eventually carried the day.

Bafarawa’s subsequent arraignment and denial of bail over an alleged N15 billion fraud at the state high court did not happen without the usual sloppiness of the EFCC sticking out. The ex governor was initially billed to be arraigned at the Federal High Court, Sokoto but it was on the morning of the arraignment that the EFCC discovered that the high court judge was actually out of the country and had to scramble to get another court for the arraignment. Mercifully for them, the state high court judge agreed to hear the case.

What actually worries me is just this sort of sloppiness on the part of the EFCC which has seen it throw away some cases simply because it failed to do the pain staking work of building a solid case against those it is prosecuting. Often they are left rushing off to the appeal courts to further pursue cases which they ordinarily should have nailed in the first place. A good case that springs to mind is the James Ibori case that was decided in favor of the former governor last week. According to Justice Michael Awokulehin of the Asaba Federal High Court who delivered the ruling, “There was no witness statement from any of the EFCC officials in the proof of evidence of criminal trial…the prosecution has failed in the instant case against any or all the accused persons in the 170-count charge. The law should only be applied to facts of the case. The accused person is either criminally responsible for an act or he is not. There is no two ways about it.” He went further to add that: “It is an elementary and most vital requirement of our law that before the prosecution takes the decision to prosecute, it must have all the evidence to support the charge.”

Even though I cannot claim any expertise in legal matters, I can deduce from the above that EFCC did not, once again, do its home work well before seeking to throw Ibori in jail. It is funny that the EFCC has not realized that the number of charges against a person – whether one or 170, as was the case with Ibori, does not matter. What matters the most is the evidence it has to support the charge. If it has concentrated in digging up a strong evidence to support just one of the 170 charges against Ibori, perhaps it would have secured a favorable judgement. As expected, the EFCC has said it will appeal the ruling. I hope the EFCC has learnt a lesson or two from this ruling and also hope that by the time it gets to the Appeal Court it will be able to provide the necessary evidence to nail Ibori. If cannot, then it had better not waste our time with its ineptitude.