By Kunle Aremu
The noise against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is deafening but the echoes are short-lived.
Those who have skeletons in their cupboard are making so much noise to demonise the anti graft agency. Where their noise cannot reach, they contract it out and pay the pipers to blow it loud.
Their voices collide and give sounds of irregular vibration on why the EFCC should not go after their corrupt friends.
They hire lawyers, they pay their professed Civil Society groups to speak against the formation and operation of the EFCC.
Of course their noise is loud, it is not audible and it is written on the wall to window dress corruption but the echoes are faint, it does not reverberate. It fades away.
The gathering of some state governors and their hired lawyers and CSOs against EFCC is a temporary challenge to the anti graft agency in my view because this ploy is not well put together and it’s bound to fail.
As our democracy grows, Nigerians are becoming wiser and our institutions are growing stronger in terms of their modus operandi. EFCC of 2024 is not the same as the EFCC of 2000.
EFCC as an anti graft agency is becoming more civil without which it would have bundled some ex-governors into its cella without proper prosecution. But today, some of the alleged governors are moving around towns and appearing in courts once in a while over their alleged financial misappropriation.
Perhaps they should ask how EFCC dealt with former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun? How ex-governor Ayo Fayose, former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, former Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati were clutched in EFCC cell to do fellowship even when their cases were still in court.
But today not only is an alleged former governor of Kogi state strolling around the EFCC office, he is exhibiting audacity and challenging the law that formed the anti graft agency.
For me, I see the rise of the 19 state governors against the EFCC at the Supreme Court as an impetus the agency will need to become tougher and stronger as an institution, the plot will not in any way reduce its powers.
When I read that over 5,000 lawyers backed governors of the 19 states, insisting EFCC law is unconstitutional, what came to my mind was one of the movies of “Baba Suwe”, the late Nollywood comedian.
Baba Suwe came back from prison to throw a party that he was the first to ever went to prison in his family. That to be taken care by the government in a correctional centre is a great gain.
After their tenure in office, the governors will be questioned on how they have spent the public funds not on what they had done to question the constitutionality of the EFCC. They will be grilled and allowed to sleep in the cell during the interrogation and I think they should be happy like “Baba Suwe”.
When that time comes, I will expect their lawyers will celebrate with them like “Baba Suwe” because their fight against EFCC at present would have strengthened the agency rather than weakening it.
How I wish, the lawyers can raise up their hands now so that we can know them and identify them when their “Baba Suwe” movie will be premiered.
Who are the 5000 lawyers that are singing praises of the governors? What are their names and when did the judiciary become a clapping wing for the executive and where did it happen, at the court or in the governors’ offices?
According to a statement, the judiciary watchdogs, a group of lawyers from the 36 states of the federation, commended the governors for their courageous stand. For me, courage is standing to be probed not challenging the process of probe or the legality of the institution to probe you.
To the lawyers, the governors have shown courage but for me the governors have only expressed fears ahead of their hanging fate in the hands of the EFCC .
The “faceless” lawyers said, that the EFCC’s enabling act was enacted without input from state assemblies, violating the principles of federalism and state autonomy.
Signed by Co-National Convener, Barr Real S. Dennis, the lawyers said the governors were on track for demanding constitutional compliance, state sovereignty, and accountability from the EFCC and other anti-graft agencies.
Dennis argued that the National Assembly must ratify the UN Convention against Corruption in accordance with Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution.
Anyway, these “faceless” lawyers may have got some issues to debate on, it will not stop the EFCC from doing its job, including prosecuting some of the governors as soon as their immunity expires.
I do not have any doubt that the supreme court and the eventual take of the EFCC by the national assembly in the nearest future will make EFCC to look more like the American Federal Bureau of Intelligence, FBI that it will be difficult for anybody to look into its laws.
There was a time the question of which is powerful between FBI and CIA arose, the idea rather than weakening any of the two agencies, fortified them the more and played up FBI bigger than CIA even though both are federal.
This is what I see in Nigeria in the future with the clamour by the governors and their cronies to form their own anti graft agencies.
The EFCC and other federal anti-graft agencies, including the state service agencies would be stronger and work hand in hands with the state agencies.
What will happen is a fight against corruption not a fight between the federal and state agencies, going by the daily exposure and civilisation of the people.
This is obvious by the ongoing campaign against EFCC, which has not held waters but a case of motion without movement; noise with faded echoes and the glamorisation of corruption.
There have not been serious defences by the EFCC, to possibly begin to rebrand itself or allow the noise to derail its operations. It has kept its eyes on the ball, to pursue with all vigour within the ambit of the law, to go after corrupt individuals without minding whose ox is gored.
Like us, the EFCC only hears the noise and its fading echoes from the side of the detractors.
-Kunle Aremu is a seasoned journalist and regular columnist.
