Searchlights are being beamed on the efficacy of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), the anti-corruption agency established by government, charged with the duties to investigate and prosecute corruption and financial-related crimes.Last week, the House of Representatives indicated its intentions to commence proceedings to amend the EFCC Act 2004. If the Bill sails through, it would effect an overhaul in the Agency's leadership to exclude all former security officers from that post. The planned amendment will make only serving or retired Justices of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal appointtable as the Head of the agency. The background to this proposed amendment is not far-fetched.It had been observed that high-profile cases brought to court usually have their charges quashed, either for lack of merit or disputing parties, at the instance of the defence, enters into plea bargain as prescribed in Section 76 of the Criminal Justice Administration (Lagos State) in which prosecutor and a defendant or his legal practitioner may, before the plea of the charge, enter into an agreement in respect of '(a) a plea of guilty by the defendant to the offence charged or a lesser offence of which he may be convicted on the charge...'' In such instance, substantial amount involved is restituted. Mr. Bassey Ewa, a Member of the House of Representatives from Cross River State, is critical of the Commission's modus operandi of hastily filing charges which it could not substantiate in court: 'The Commission can file up to 500 charges against a suspect and one by one, these charges do not hold in court because the agency is not receiving proper guidance from its leadership''.During the debate on the floor of the House, Hon. Uzor Azubike from Abia State also noted that: 'the law says a suspect is to be treated as innocent until proven guilty but at EFCC the suspect is treated as guilty until proven innocent.' Femi Babafemi, EFCC's spokesperson, has refuted the comments from the legislators, describing them as 'invalid and a cheap blackmail'. Conflicting reports between what is passed to the media and actual particulars of an offence on EFCC's charge sheets also leaves much to be desired. It demonstrates the Commission's penchant for deliberately misleading the public. The charges preferred against a former Governor are a recent case-in-point. The Commission had earlier summed up total amount involved in yet-to-be preferred charges at N58 billon and thrown it to the public domain.By the time the charges were read in court, all of them with monetary value came to less than N5 billion. The wide margin of N53 billion is, indeed, wide! In instances like this, a plea of unsubstantiated charges or malicious prosecution by defence can scarcely be defeated.The media, in holding public office holders accountable to the people, has hastened to help the Commission to judge rather than to conduct a thorough forensic analysis of the materials to investigate and gather hard evidence to prosecute crime. What takes place during court proceedings is usually over-dramatised in the media. Consequently, suspects are adjudged guilty and made to carry the stigma of a criminal even when the court vested with competent jurisdiction has not so pronounced.When, however, in advocacy, those who have been treated to media trial are acquitted and discharged, vulnerable consumers of skewed media hype turn around to blame government as lacking in political will to 'fight corruption'. The EFCC then becomes the whipping boy as it is now seen as a willing tool in the hands of the Executive to carry out the dirty job of demonisation of the opposition. Yet it is clear to the world that the case presented in court was weak because of the inability of the Commission to conduct thorough investigations. As it is well known, not all cases that come to court go into trial, and not all trials translate into conviction. The line of thinking as outlined on the floor of the House is that EFCC, due to its recurring failure to conduct thorough investigations, clearly lacks the competence to successfully reduce corruption to its barest minimum. Increasingly in the eyes of the public, the Commission is no more than a pliable tool in the hands of powerful politicians. The unsavoury culture of churning out sub-judicial comments from its Abuja head-quarters has over the years rendered it an ineffective tool to fight the war against corruption and threatens to derail the entire campaign. One of the frustrations of the National Assembly stems from several instances of such recklessness, making it desirable to have high ranking judicial officers who would put appropriate procedures in place to prevent the Commission from making sub-judicial comments or leaking unsubstantiated information to the media capable of perverting justice.Indeed, the Commission has fared worse under the current leadership of Mrs. Farida Waziri. This is a view also shared by the international community. As recent as August 2011, Human Rights Watch in its report titled 'Corruption on Trial' The Records of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission' commented that: 'The analyses show much of the cases instituted by the EFCC have generated more headlines than convictions, and neither Ribadu nor Waziri can claim more than a handful of concrete successes.'We subscribe to the view that the Commission so far having had its affairs run by two former law enforcement officers and unable to record significant success, must now be overhauled by the proposed reforms which are clearly aimed to strengthen its operational capacities.In spite of all odds, the judiciary remains the last bastion of the common man, as the clich goes. Hardly is there any other profession where strict adherence to the rule of law is as fastidious as the legal profession. After all, when things go awry in other areas of social life, only the legal profession- the Bar and the Bench- is imbued with professional infrastructure to adjudicate and bring about amity. This is the underlying justification for the call to have a commission like EFCC superintended by a high ranking judicial officer, whose track record in the pursuit of social justice is readily verifiable in the way he dispenses justice.Assigning the Commission's Investigative Unit to the Police is equally laudable as no other institution is as equipped to investigate crime. The combined efforts of the two public institutions should strengthen the activities of the Commission and restore public confidence in it. With enhanced operational and prosecutorial capacities, EFCC would be fortified sufficiently to live up to its mandate. It is for these reasons that we urge the National Assembly to hasten this amendment process that has the potential to make the war against corruption more potent.
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