The sacked chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC], Mrs Farida Waziri is a woman constantly in the eye of the storm. Regional Editor (News), Olawale Rasheed, X-rays the records and style of this ex-anti-corruption czar in the wake of her dramatic removal from office. The chair of anti-corruption agencies worldwide is an extra-sensitive and controversial position placing its occupants against powerful and entrenched interests. An anti-corruption boss cannot be loved nor adulated by the citizenry or those hunted. Mrs Waziri, the amazon after the lions, is finally walloped by those she hunted.The circumstances of her appointment were an albatross as the drama that surrounded the exit of her predecessor continued to hunt her. A top lawyer, holder of several degrees, an accomplished police professional, Mrs Waziri came into office after the removal of Ribadu who was reputed and later vilified for his Gestapo style harshly condemned by human right campaigners. The Benue woman stepped into the shoe of Ribadu, a stage player, an attention seeking officer who at a point became law unto himself. Unfortunately, the public, mesmerised by the climate of false performance foisted on the nation by Ribadu were not ready to settle for less.Her refusal to continue the handcuffing of suspects alongside their humane treatment was tagged as a weakness of the anti-corruption war. The necessity of conclusive investigations before arrests was considered a slowed down. A substitution of a culture of due diligence and rule of law for the previous arbitrariness and gangster-like assault in the anti-corruption war was derided in many quarters. It was not long before many entrenched interest started calling for her head, followed by allegations of various dimensions bordering on the legality of her appointments, weak prosecutorial capacity, issue of corruption within the agency and most vociferously, the then frosty relationship with the Attorney General of the Federation.In the last one year, Mrs Waziri was clearly the most vilified of all public officials, the only official so frequently sacked on pages of newspapers and about the only top flight Nigerian official so openly despised by the American government. Her critics even without any shred of evidence, were frequently quick to see her as an ally of corrupt interest she was supposed to fight.She incurred the wrath of American government when she reorganised the agency on assumption of office, removing many officers who had worked with her predecessor, most of them trained by the American government. Her defence then was that the transferred officials were sabotaging the agency from within, hence the need for the reorganisation. For unexplained reasons, the Americans seem to prefer Ribadu to Waziri.Temporary succour only came the way of the former EFCC boss from the European Commission which decided to support the re-engineering programme of the EFCC despite Washington's opposition.With enemies at home and abroad, Waziri trudged on fearlessly, reinventing the anti-corruption war and fighting back with facts and figures not previously known or disclosed to the public. It is interesting that very few analysts have actually used statistics in the review of the nation's efforts to tame corruption. Here, Waziri stepped in buoyed by a recently released Human Rights Watch report. By March 2011, the EFCC had arraigned some 1,200 people for advance fee fraud, securing so far more than 400 convictions. Even Central Bank officials told Human Rights Watch that they had received 'tremendous cooperation' from Waziri's EFCC in their efforts to sanitize the banking industry and rid the sector of criminals.The EFCC made important progress in recovering assets that are the proceeds of crime. According to Waziri, since its inception in 2003, the agency has recovered over $11billion'of which some $6.5 billion was recovered during Waziri's tenure, most of which was recovered in the Central Bank's overhaul of the banking sector. According to the EFCC, between June 2008 and March 2011, the EFCC recovered $4.3 billion from the banking sector; $903.3 million from asset forfeitures, advance fee fraud, and other related cases; $240 million from penalties imposed on multinational corporations and $10 million from local businesses; and $23 million from tax evasion. While critics accepted the positive performance of the agency in the apolitical corruption cases, many are sceptical when it comes to the EFCC's track record on high-profile political corruption cases. Waziri was perceived to be soft on corrupt public officials and harsh on apolitical cases. She, however, angrily denied that the EFCC's anti-corruption work has deteriorated since Ribadu's ouster, suggesting that her predecessor was more effective as a celebrity than as a prosecutor. Declaring in an interview with Human Rights Watch., 'I don't want to handcuff people and make news 24 hours a day. I want my work to speak for me.'If she is to be taken by her words, the review of prosecution of Nationally Prominent Political Figures was higher under Waziri than Ribadu. The number of prosecutions targeting allegedly corrupt nationally prominent public officials was higher under Waziri (16 cases) than Ribadu (10 cases). As of May 2010, the EFCC claimed that it had 52 'high-profile' on-going cases and that 41 of these had been filed. The latest additions are that of four ex-governors.It is important to state as recent studies have shown too that Ribadu was no more successful in convicting nationally prominent political figures than Waziri was. Worst still, both of the EFCC's convictions under Ribadu were through plea bargain agreements. In statistical term, Waziri seemed to be ahead of Ribadu both in convictions secured, fund recovered and high profile cases filed.Yet, the woman had to battle the challenge of perceptions versus reality. While actual records may vindicate her, Nigerians are however not contented with cases filed in courts. They are eager to read of convictions of prominent figures. Here she also put up a stout defence when she advocated for a special court for prosecutions of corruption cases. Such courts will speedily dispense justice and cage the monster of corruption. It was only a few weeks to her removal that the Special Anti- Corruption Court she proposed started receiving attention.In spite of her recent travails in the court of highly expectant court of public opinion, Mrs Waziri recently secured a very rare but now short-lived presidential endorsement when President Goodluck Jonathan in his recent address at the United Nations applauded the anti-corruption efforts of the commission. The president's statement surprised many watchers as the heat to get the woman out was becoming very intense prior to the president's trip to New York.The many sins of Waziri however reached the peak as there was a perception that she authorised media campaigns against her boss, the Attorney-General of the Federation. The perception later became a reality when alleged evidence surfaced of the commission's sponsoring of media attacks on the ministry of justice. This was particularly so when the justice minister issued operational guidelines on the operations of the commission in line with constitutional provisions, a move that put the justice minister under a barrage of media salvo. Though the frosty relationship was resolved, the wound did not heal.Another sin of the barrister was her conception of an anti-corruption body totally independent of any authority, a view many within the political establishment considered utopian as such does not exist anywhere in the world. Alleged resistance to usual statutory control was her key undoing while her failure to manage the political intricacies of her job may have finally nailed her coffin.Even before her removal, jostling for her position had commenced. It was reported that two commissioners of police were already pencilled down for the job. Even within the commission, the feelings of imminent change of leadership were rife with some officials already discreetly contacting the likely successor.Mrs Waziri left the commission with many cases in court but with few convictions just like her predecessor. She left the image of a commission still unable to tame the menace of corruption despite dramatic arrests and arraignments of suspects. What is more, she left a lesson for her successor that statutory supervision of the EFCC by the Attorney General is a constitutional rather than a discretionary matter.Waziri's exit marked the end of an era, the close of a chapter in the ever impregnable battle against corruption.
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