Dr Promise Adiele

By Promise Adiele

I am calling for the scrapping, abolishing, and dissolution of Nigeria’s financial crime watchdog, The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) without further delay. By this call, I do not for one moment, subscribe to the idea that Nigerians employed in the agency should be thrown into our constricting unemployment space. The entire staff should still be retained in a different flank of the Nigerian Police Force. But the financial crime watch body so constituted should be scrapped immediately because it has become redundant, expendable, and comatose. The primary responsibility of the agency is to fight economic financial crimes against the Nigerian state no matter who is involved. Among other things, the EFCC is required to investigate, uncover, and bring to the book public or private citizens living beyond their means. But regrettably, the EFCC has abandoned ship, abnegated its primary responsibilities, and abjured the distinguished virtues of its establishment. Financial crime in Nigeria has exceeded scandalous levels, stretching towards appalling, abominable heights under the watch of the EFCC.

Although I am calling for the scrapping of the EFCC, I doubt very much if the present Buhari administration has the will and determination to take such a bold step. So perhaps, my advice and opinion that EFCC should be scrapped are mainly directed to the next occupant of Aso Rock, that is, if Nigerians, in their grovelling self-debasement and materialistic fantasizing will elect a good leader. There is no justifiable reason for the EFCC to continue to exist seeing that financial crime, in all its predatory, sinister devaluating potential, has almost crippled the country. People accused of various crimes, those who have plundered the Nigerian exchequer at different times and under different guises now shamelessly flaunt the same before Nigerians. Many of these people are lawmakers, yes, people with criminal cases hanging on their heads make laws in Nigeria. Many of these people are aspiring to become Nigeria’s President, some want to be Governors, others want to be Ministers too and many others are jostling to occupy one leadership position or another while their criminal files occupy large spaces in EFCC’s office. While flaunting their filthy lucre, they ride their chariots over the cringing, degenerate, deprived masses whose misery they have enthroned.

A country where suspected double-dealers, criminals, and corporate thieves make laws and determine people’s destinies can only head for the rocks. Those who are searching for the problem with Nigerian need not go far. The name of the game is stealing, pilfering, and siphoning of public funds using every available channel. Yet, EFCC sleeps over these issues. Their past time is to pursue petty thieves, yahoo boys, and other minor financial infractions. I do not in any way ask EFCC to spare any category of criminality, but their neglect of bigger criminals demands an inquest and a thorough remonstration by those who care for this country. Although the failed Buhari administration always regales us with tales of fighting corruption, Nigerians bear testimony to the growth and entrenchment of the vice in the country. It is galling and disconcerting. Corruption under the Buhari administration, for all its disastrous intrusion of public culture, is undergoing a legitimizing process. By the time this administration is over, corruption would have become a medal worn as a national honour, a national recognition of achievement.

Recently the media was awash with reports that the Federal Government of Nigeria trained 177 youths in Smartphone repairs with a whopping sum of N5.9 billion naira in Kano State through the N-Power program. Mathematically, this means that N33.3 million naira was spent on each youth in the scheme. How brutally wicked and unconscionable can people be? The first reaction of any normal person to such heist is an internal violation, angst, and a level of self-pity which shatters the individual’s psyche. Secondly, the report immediately conveys a feeling of denial, rape, and assault on every strand of the human emblem. Digesting the information further, one is reminded of the kind of criminal circus that Nigeria has become overseen by those who love to shamelessly posture and echo the integrity mantra. How on planet earth can a government defend such obscenity? As soon as the news broke out, I expected our financial crime watchdog to go to work and arrest all the officials involved in the scam at least for questioning. But the EFCC did not bestir. They slept like a lame, crippled mass of flesh, pretending not to know that Nigerians have been robbed and the exchequer vanquished. In what seems like an afterthought, the Federal Government, perhaps realizing that the press had uncovered their oozing, lucre dyspeptic underbelly, immediately issued a statement denying the information as misleading. The Federal Government did not deny spending N5.9 billion naira, no. Rather, they admitted that instead of 177 youths, the funds were spent on 16,629 youths. The truth is that 177 youths were trained, simple. The 16, 629 figure was an afterthought by the government. Indeed, it is criminal to expend such a mind-boggling amount of money on the training of 177 youths while our university teaching hospitals are a crying necropolis. It is easy to see through government’s perfidy and deceit. EFCC should immediately arrest all those involved in this scam. If not, the subsisting narrative that the financial crime commission has outlived its usefulness will gather more steam and the perpetrators vindicated.

A country where suspected double-dealers, criminals, and corporate thieves make laws and determine people’s destinies can only head for the rocks. Those who are searching for the problem with Nigerian need not go far. The name of the game is stealing, pilfering, and siphoning of public funds using every available channel. Yet, EFCC sleeps over these issues. Their past time is to pursue petty thieves, yahoo boys, and other minor financial infractions.

In the same vein, Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, a public servant ostensibly earning salaries, recently in Kebbi State distributed thirty exotic cars to politicians. The gesture came some days after he declared his intentions to contest the 2023 governorship election in the state. The cars include fourteen Mercedes Benz (GLK 2022 model) valued at 40 million naira each, eight Prado SUVs 2021 model, valued at 45 million naira each, four Toyota Hilux 2021 model valued at 35 million naira each, and four Lexus LX 570 2021 model valued at 95 million naira each. Hapless and befuddled Nigerians read the invidious details of the Greek gift with chagrin and a sense of loss. It grates on the soul of a genuine citizen how a public officer will donate such expensive gifts to possibly influence delegates towards the APC governorship primaries in Kebbi State. If EFCC was alive to its responsibilities, Abubakar Malami would have been answering questions now explaining how and where he got so much money to indulge in that kind of reckless ostentation and vulgar display of wealth. But EFCC has looked away and Abubakar Malami is a free man, perhaps planning to donate more exotic cars and other material items towards the State’s party primaries soon. If there was no agency of government saddled with the responsibility to investigate and arrest financial criminals, Nigerians wouldn’t have bothered much. But the certainty that there is an agency of government with the responsibility to watch, arrest, and investigate those who indulge in financial impropriety drives the pain deeper. What are EFCC’s terms of reference, their duty to Nigerians and responsibilities as a financial watchdog if public servants display this level of financial irresponsibility daily?

The Nigerian Senate is populated by suspected criminals, those who have cases to answer with big files at EFCC. Godswill Akpabio was accused of mismanaging N100 billion naira State funds by the EFCC. Today he is a serving minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Theodore Orji was accused of mismanaging N27 billion naira State funds by the EFCC. Today he is a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Ibrahim Shakarau was accused of mismanaging N950 million naira of Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign funds by the EFCC. Today he is a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Ifeanyi Ubah was accused of N43 billion naira subsidy fraud by the EFCC. Today he is a strong member of the Nigerian Senate. Yet, there are many more. It is this kind of existing double standard by the EFCC that has necessitated a call for their immediate scrapping. To look away while those accused of financial crimes in the country, especially government officials walk the streets while hounding petty thieves whose motives are driven by hunger is to demonstrate pathetic irresponsibility. Towards party primaries at all levels, politicians are barring their fangs, sharing billions amid hunger and deprivation in the country. EFCC should either do their job or close shop and go home. Nigerians deserve more respect as they confront survival headlong. EFCC should speak up now or keep quiet forever.

Promise Adiele PhD

Mountain Top University

[email protected]