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Nigeria: Sharpening EFCC's Fangs
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This Day (Lagos)
OPINION
3 July 2008
Posted to the web 4 July 2008
Abiodun Olayinka
If the expectations of those who rabidly opposed the appointment of Mrs Farida Waziri as the new chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are anything to take seriously, by now, the whole organizational structures of the anti-graft agency should have crashed.
At the EFCC, the on-going re-organization is pointing to an iron resolve of the new board headed by Waziri to truly re-position the commission for the challenges of the future. This is a right step in the right direction.
Those who are expressing fears that the war may be abandoned may be taking a rear mirror view of things in Nigeria. The truth of the matter is that only by being optimistic and positive about ourselves can we move forward.
Waziri admitted that Ribadu and his team tried their best and laid a solid foundation that she can build upon. What many of us do not know is that even Ribadu cannot sneer at the capacity and competence of Waziri to raise the bar of the anti-corruption war. This is because Ribadu and many officers that worked with him were actually trained by her!
Waziri's critics may have also realized that she is bringing newer initiatives to the war against corruption and some of these initiatives are turning out to be un-assailable. For example, as against the old methodology of waiting for petitions to be forwarded to the EFCC before investigations are made into some acts of corruption, Waziri told the whole world that the EFCC will no longer wait for such a protocol to get corrupt elements in our midst to be brought to book. She said that her commission will henceforth be doing independent investigations of individuals, governments and organizations and bring them to account whenever any of their transactions and activities become questionable. This is good. In fact, some of us were surprised that the EFCC never initiated any investigations into the contract scandal that eased out Patricia Etteh from the leadership of the House of Representatives. Ibrahim Lamorde, immediate past acting chairman of the
EFCC said that the commission could not do it because no petition was brought against her! Many of us regarded such a claim as escapist. So, Waziri's readiness to change such an operational methodology to a more practical one is welcome.
Equally welcome is the desire of the new EFCC's helmsman to dig deeper into the private sector in order to ferret out activities and dealings that may be counter-productive to the health of our economy. This is necessary because the pre-Waziri's EFCC focused more attention on the public sector as if the private sector was immune to corrupt practices. In this respect, I charge the new EFCC's leadership to beam serious searchlight on the banking sector.
It is worrisome that the sector is increasingly posting heavy profits in a terribly depressed economy like ours. The EFCC should do more work in respect of interest rate manipulation in banks, insider credits, paper profits and such other financial abuses that are commonplace in banks. Money laundering practices in banks are on the increase. The EFCC should come out with investigations in this regard. Both local and international criminals must be smoked out.
Waziri seems to be reading the minds of many Nigerians when she arraigned George Eider, the Austrian contractor arrested by operatives of the EFCC over forgery of government documents, abuse of office and misappropriation of about N6billion belonging to the government. This is a newer angle to the fight against corruption. Ribadu did well at the EFCC but I doubt whether his anti-corruption war ever affected foreigners the way Waziri has started. So, both local and international fraudsters may no longer enjoy their sleep again the way the new EFCC' s boss has started.
Be that as it may, what we all owe Farida Waziri, the EFCC and the entire nation is to join hands together in the war against corruption. It is wrong to leave the fight to the EFCC and ICPC alone. Now that she is making efforts in the right direction and taking some sure but measured steps, we all need to rally round her to make her succeed. We need to shake off our doubts and suspicion and allow truths to open up our minds. We need to allow wise counsel replace every inherited prejudice and optimism to take the place of cynicism
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-Olayinka wrote from Ilesa, Osun State
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