"But
as I always insist, success of anti-graft efforts is hinged largely at
the leadership level, especially the political leadership. We were lucky
to have the cooperation of the leadership at the time."
I read Mahmud Jega’s Daily Trust column a fortnight ago, with the
title “Gra-gra versus softly-softly”. It was composed in his
characteristic meticulousness which also touched a nerve that concerns
all. It also involved me, personally. It involved me because the piece
was not only about anti-corruption struggle, something I came to be more
identified with in the course of my career, but also because I was
mentioned, or referenced to, many times in the piece. In the piece, Jega
repeated several erroneous notions about my work at the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). But to be fair to him, those
insinuations were far from being his concoctions. They have been held
for a long time by a section of Nigerians who were largely misinformed
about the modus operandi of the EFCC I headed, or about me as a person. I
therefore thought it a duty to correct some of the wrong impressions
people have about what we did, for the sake of futurity and the reading
public.
I must, however, appreciate many of the positive things about our
operations and modest achievements at the EFCC highlighted by Jega.
Those were things we achieved largely because of our resolve to form a
strong and professional agency, from the outset. Strong institutions are
at the base of whatever things to come out of a system. This was a
major focus for us. There were deliberate steps at capacity building
that would prove extremely advantageous for the work we did in the five
years I was there. I use “we” because the work was never a one man job.
EFCC was beyond Nuhu Ribadu, or any individual for that matter. It was a
team work. The patriotism, esprit de corp and professionalism exhibited
by the team were the secrets for our successes.
But as I always insist, success of anti-graft efforts is hinged
largely at the leadership level, especially the political leadership. We
were lucky to have the cooperation of the leadership at the time. To
the credit of President Olusegun Obasanjo, he let us do the work even at
a time we were going against some elements that were extremely close to
him. It is therefore amusing when I hear people these days charge me of
“selective justice”. Well, perhaps those charges could be passed as the
example of what Wole Soyinka called ” our collective amnesia”. Take a
comprehensive list of high profile people EFCC brought to justice,
majority of them were people that could be correctly tagged “Obasanjo
boys”. Even though some of them suddenly turn around the moment they
found themselves in trouble with the law, as a way of buying public
sympathy. Unfortunately, many people don’t strive to stretch the facts
to reveal this truth. One largely neglected pillar of our work was the
Judiciary and the criminal justice system generally. We had the support
of other people in the justice administration chain. Without the will of
incorruptible judges and other law enforcement officials, all our
modest effort would have come to nought.
However, the main thesis of Jega’s essay, which was also made clear
from the title, was that the EFCC I headed was something of a gra-gra
agency – a body that is peopled with exuberant officers eager to arrest
suspects in order to hit the headlines. This is a flawed assessment of
it. It is also something that people come to believe, largely on account
of the agency’s portrayal in the media. EFCC was, and is, never about
arrests. In fact, arrest was just a fraction of the entire work. But
because arrest is what makes the news, the myriad of steps and processes
we follow before and after arrest are mostly overlooked.
Every step in administration of a corruption case is carefully
outlined and has its rigours and identified procedures. A lot of work
would have to be put in from the point of accepting a petition or
starting a case, analysing it, identifying the key issues and persons,
investigation, sourcing documents, obtaining arrest and search warrants,
preparing charges and then arrest. We tried to work on each of the
steps in a very meticulous manner. It is a little surprise therefore,
that throughout my period there was only one person who took me to court
challenging his detention by the EFCC. He also lost the suit. The
reason was simple: we followed the law and therefore had to do our
homework before we pick anybody. Similarly, to point to the meticulous
nature of what we did, it is in record that the EFCC recorded a world
record of over 90 percent convictions on all the cases we prosecuted. I
don’t think gra-gra would yield these results.
It is also incorrect to say that EFCC didn’t pursue preventive
measures as regards corruption. We fully appreciated the fact that the
twin strategy of prevention and sanctioning must always go together in
law enforcement in general and fighting corruption in particular. The
preventive measures of the EFCC were often overshadowed by the news
selling headlines about arrests but EFCC took a lot of preventive
measures. Major ones include the establishment of the Training and
Research Institute that has been carrying out studies on corruption
prevention in both public and private sectors. The institute is in the
lead in training of detectives, public servants, bankers and so many
others in Nigeria today. The establishment of Financial Intelligence
Unit is one of the most important steps in preventive measures of
controlling corruption globally, EFCC has done it for Nigeria. EFCC also
worked to establish international networks and linkages, notably with
the United Nations, FBI, Metropolitan Police, German BKA, and West
African anti-money-laundering group, GIABA, among others.
We also worked closely with many departments of governments, civil
society groups, religious organisations and schools, on public
enlightenment to stem corruption in the society. EFCC also engaged the
National Assembly to amend laws, the judiciary on corruption prevention
and justice delivery, the customs, the FIRS, NPA and many states and
local governments. In fact, many of the arrests made by EFCC arose out
of whistle-blowing efforts through these mechanisms. By the way, arrests
and prosecutions are also very powerful tools of preventive measures,
because they do send a strong message that one cannot get away with
corrupt practice, no matter how highly placed.
The article also mentioned the impeachment of three governors
allegedly influenced by the EFCC. I try as much as possible not to be
personal by commenting on such cases but the fact that it is suddenly
gaining currency, makes it only sensible to clear the misconceptions.
The EFCC did not and could not have impeached any governor or force
legislators to do so. It will be unfair to deny the legislators the
credit of doing their constitutional responsibilities. The EFCC did its
part of the responsibility of investigation and submission of findings
to the various State Assemblies all over the nation. Some state
assemblies had cause to act on such reports, others did not. But we
certainly did not force anyone to take any action. My understanding of
events then was that two out of the three former governors got arrested
in London with millions of Pounds. They absconded from justice there
and that triggered chain of events that culminated in their lost of
political control of their states and thereby resulted in their
impeachments. The former governor of Ekiti state had his own local
issues. He lost out with the elite of the state, his political party,
and other stakeholders. His ordeals had nothing to do with the EFCC. In
all the cases, it was obvious that the governors lost out with their
political parties and therefore the assembly members were more than
willing to act on the thorough investigation reports of the EFCC. The
reports were the extent of EFCC’s involvement in those impeachments.
As a proviso, I want to state that all the actions we took while at
the EFCC were taken with the purest of intentions and based on
available facts before us at the time. But it is understandable that in
everything we do as humans, we are bound to be misunderstood. However,
fear of being misunderstood should not be an excuse for not moving to
salvage our country. As citizens, we all have the civic responsibility
of playing our part in healing the country of its myriad of maladies and
guiding it to the coast of prosperity.
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Nuhu Ribadu is the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Kevin Djakpor's Blog