Dr. Akpo Mudiaga Odje responded to posers from ALABI WILLIAMS on how to rid the country of corruption.Why do you think ICPC is not doing what the law set it up to do, to rid the country of corruption'FOR starters, corruption in Nigeria has become not only hydra-headed, but a pandemic; it is systemic and institutionalized.At the last count, we have seven anti-corruption statutes including the ICPC. Besides the general leviathan difficulties in ridding the country of corruption, the ICPC is already beset with certain institutional framework and legal bottlenecks, which have rendered it a lame duck in its statutory assignment to fight corruption.By section 10 of the ICPC Act 2003, the ICPC can only investigate suspected corrupt practices or fraud and make recommendations for prosecution but cannot prosecute offenders directly. In fact, by section 30 of the ICPC Act, prosecution for any offence under the Act shall be initiated in the name of the Attorney General of the Federation or of a state as the case may be, whereas, the EFCC has direct and over riding prosecutorial powers under section 6 (m) of the EFCC Act, 2004.Further, the ICPC law has been rendered subject and subservient to the EFCC by the provisions of section 7 (2) of the EFCC Act, which provides thus:'In addition to the powers conferred on the Commission by this Act the Commission shall be the coordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions of (f) any other law or regulation relating to economic and financial crimes, including the Criminal Code and Penal Code.'Interestingly, section 46 of the EFCC Act has already defined 'economic and financial crimes' to mean ''bribery, looting and any form of corrupt malpractices.'So from the outset, the laws have given ample powers to the EFCC as the touch bearer in the fight against corruption in Nigeria, with the ICPC just doing a mimic.We may also like to look at it from the angle of the officers at the helm of the ICPC since inception and mode of their appointment. By Section 3 (4) of the ICPC Act 2003, the Chairman of the Commission shall be a serving judge of the Court of Appeal. Section 6 provides that the Chairman and members of the commission' shall be appointed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria upon the advice of the NJC subject to confirmation by the Senate.We have had very eminent justices head the Commission but that did not yield much. Do you think it is capacity problem or the law is deficient'The problem of the ICPC in its fight against corruption is both that of capacity and deficiency in the law setting it up.Yes, we have had very eminent justices head the Commission but we must realize that judges by nature are very conservative and we could as well see the rather bureaucratic process of their appointment as could be seen under section 6 of the Act. Judges by training are meant to adjudicate between parties. They do not have the temperament to begin to vigorously pursue hardened criminals and politicians for corruption, the way a Nuhu Ribadu would go after governors and other high- ranking officers.Still on issue of capacity, whereas the EFCC Chairman is appointed directly by the President, so that the EFCC Chairman is accountable to the President, under the ICPC Act, the Chairman is first accountable to the Chief Justice of Nigeria who appoints him and then the National Judicial Council that recommends him. This kind of situation will not allow a judge who heads the ICPC to frontally fight corruption pell-mell. These are the reasons why by 2007, the EFCC could secure convictions in 275 of the near 1,000 cases in courts whilst the ICPC could not even boast of one conviction.On deficiency of the law, we already agree that the ICPC Act does not give strong powers as does the EFCC. For instance, in furtherance of the prosecutorial powers given to the EFCC by section 40 of the EFCC Act, 'an application for stay of proceedings in respect of any criminal matter brought by the Commission before the High Court shall not be entertained until judgment is delivered by the High Court.'These are very clear and strong provisions that have helped the relative efficiency at the EFCC. In contrast, the ICPC, which has only the powers to investigate and recommend cannot be expected to do much.Before he left as ICPC chairman, Justice Ayoola said investigation on some governors had been concluded and their files were with the Supreme Court. Was that supposed to be the procedure' The point really is that the former governors were not charged by ICPC, but were charged by the EFCC. Are the two Commissions having overlapping responsibilities' How can that be sanitized for harmony'Now, the highly respected Chairman of the ICPC, Justice Ayoola could only have been acting according to laid down legal framework of the ICPC Act, especially section 10, when he said that investigation on some governors had been concluded and their files were with the Supreme Court. What could be subsumed from the whole gamut of section 10 of the ICPC Act is that the Commission has the duty to investigate any offence of which the Commission is concerned and make its recommendations for prosecution or otherwise to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation or the State. So why it is possible that the said governors had been investigated by the ICPC, they could not have been charged by the same ICPC. Indeed they were charged by the EFCC and this could be explained by section 6 (m) of the EFCC Act, which provides as follows:'The Commission shall be responsible for taking charge of, supervising, controlling, co-coordinating all the Responsibilities, functions and activities relating to the current investigation and prosecution of the offences connected with or relating to economic and financial crimes.'Indeed, I agree that both the EFCC and ICPC appear to overlap at some points, but the law has made it clear that the EFCC under section 7 (2) of the Act shall be the 'coordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions of all the anti-corruption laws (including the ICPC Act) and any other law or regulation relating to economic and financial crimes including the criminal code and penal code.'Consequently, the EFCC had been clearly empowered to take priority over the ICPC in the overall fight against corruption, especially in an event of obvious overlap.Do we really need this kind of multiple-attack on corruption, without running into some kind of legal riot'I sincerely do not think that we need all these manifold anti-corruption laws to effectively fight the cankerworm of corruption in Nigeria.At best, what we have had so far is mere duplication of effort by the various anti-corruption agencies. And at worst the continued existence and sustenance of the duplicating agency constitutes a drain on the national purse.We have never been in short supply of laws to tackle corruption; the greatest challenge has always been that of implementation. Nuhu Ribadu had stated this too in his 2009 before the U.S. Representative thus: ' I have always held the belief that the laws needed to check these problems often already exist, what is lacking is the culture of enforcement. Enforcement blossoms only where there is the necessary political will, and this political will must be strong at the very top'I strongly suggest therefore that the ICPC be collapsed into the EFCC. So that we can have one strong and concentrated anti-corruption agency; in this wise the present muddle, meddle and confusion on the overall fight against corruption would have been addressed.How can we rid the country of corruption the way the ICPC law envisaged'The way to rid Nigeria of corruption is for government to muster the political will to fight and end corruption. The irony however is that, how can government readily and whole- heartedly fight corruption when government is itself the most corrupt'So, we need first of all character re-orientation of the average Nigerian. We must change our attitude towards money and material acquisitions; we must change our value that is.Next is the necessary institutional framework to tackle the menace, which the EFCC already represents. EFCC must be further empowered and funded to carry out its statutory duties without any form of impediment.
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