Scrap The EFCC!

by Eze Eluchie,  

Over the years, each passing head of Nigeria's omnibus anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has from their involvement in sleaze and other impure activities served to embarrass not only the law enforcement community, locally and internationally, but also added to the poor perception of Nigeria (by Nigerians and the international community alike) in matters regarding corruption.

From Nuhu Ribadu (who transformed the EFCC to a thuggish-Gestapo outfit doing the bidding of then Head of State Olusegun Obasanjo) to Farida Waziri (who spent here period in office hobnobbing with some characters her office was meant to prosecute) to the immediate past helmsman, Ibrahim Lamorde (who was busy diverting whatsoever the agency was recovering from ‘corrupt persons’ and ran out of Nigeria, under the pretext of ‘going for medical treatment’ to avoid appearing to defend sundry allegations before the Senate of the Federal Republic), all former Chairmen of the EFCC had been disgraceful in office. All past heads of the EFCC have left their offices 'better financially endowed' with 'bulging pockets' and leaving the rest of us wondering how such scams could have been perpetuated under the guise of an entity established to lead the ‘war against corruption’. There is likewise no believe or hope, whatsoever, that the newly appointed acting-Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, who himself is a veteran of the rot in the establishment, will be any different.

The root problem of the EFCC lies in its foundations – it was set up by a most fraudulent character, ex-dictator Olusegun Obasanjo, whose real objectives were far removed from addressing corruption.

The way forward is to scrap the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, merge its existing operations and activities with the already existing and well established Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), then build up the capacity of the SFU with specialized training's and beefing up the infrastructure and equipment available to the SFU-NPF. Is the SFU-NPF populated by angels? Certainly no! But the Police Force has a more established structure with inbuilt and time-tested rot-sifting mechanisms which is more amenable to judicial review, scrutiny and legislative oversight.  

In addition to the people of Nigeria who have lost so much to the rot in the EFCC, others who have been equally scammed by the unfortunate happening in the EFCC include the various foreign missions which had bestowed huge sums in prepping up the EFCC – save of course those foreign entities who merely used the EFCC to serve as a ‘loot recovery agent’ to protect the foreign governments interests.

Are we safe writing on this topic? Hmmmm. Well, we already live in a very unsafe environment.

Let us scrap the EFCC!

Picture: EFCC logo, past Chairpersons of the EFCC: Nuhu Ribadu, Farida Waziri and Ibrahim Lamurde; and acting Chair, Ibrahim Magu.