Ibrahim Lamorde, the former head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has returned to the post where he was last seen to be handing-over the position to the woman he succeeded last week, Mrs. Farida Waziri.
Ibrahim Lamorde, the former head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has returned to the post where he was last seen to be handing-over the position to the woman he succeeded last week, Mrs. Farida Waziri.
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Mrs. Waziri’s sacking was conducted in something of a whimper, almost like an apology. Since her contract had not expired, it was obvious she was being sacked. An explanation would therefore have been appropriate, but none reason was given.
I congratulate President Goodluck Jonathan for finally finding the courage to remove Mrs. Waziri, a step he all but promised 19 months ago, in April 2010.
Now what?
Leadership of the EFCC is of interest because the Commission’s work is tied to most of Nigeria’s major troubles and personalities. As a result, there is no way to conduct its affairs in the dark. That is why Mrs. Waziri should have turned down the offer.
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Mrs. Waziri is genetically indisposed to battling corruption. That is why her acceptance of the job was a worse crime than the offer. The problem is that when most Nigerians are offered a position in the government, greed takes over. Mrs. Waziri is the most prominent contemporary demonstration of this.
Numerous reports following her appointment in 2008 indicated her unsuitability to serve the public interest because of a clash of interest. For instance, how could a person who had represented the former Benue State governor, George Akume, when the Nuhu Ribadu-era EFCC was investigating him, sashay into the EFCC and be expected to prosecute him?
The moment she got through the EFCC doors, Waziri’s first task was to dismantle the EFCC as we knew it. She immediately kicked aside the top 10 officers who had been responsible for such high profile cases as those of Bukola Saraki and James Ibori. Does anyone remember Ibrahim Mustafa Magu who headed the Economic Governance Section and Presidential Task Force of the EFCC? He was reputed to be thorough and professional, but Mrs. Waziri wanted no such men, and so she had him arrested, detained for 17 days, suspended from the police, and exiled to Ekiti State.
How could Magu have been such a star in one week and the devil himself the next? In Mrs. Waziri’s well-manicured fingers it was easy: she said she was looking for “vital documents” concerning sensitive EFCC cases. She claimed that the files of the governors facing prosecution were either missing or distorted. But while I had criticized Mr. Ribadu for his inconsistencies, one of his true achievements was that EFCC records were much more than scruffy old-school police folders, and the Commission had copies in offshore locations.
She also lied that there were no petitions against former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Not true: in November 2007, the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), publicly filed one, accompanied with a public demonstration at the EFCC’s Ikoyi office, where the Head of General Investigation, Mr. Umaru Sanda, received the petition. On December 10, the Conference of National Political Parties (CNPP) also publicly filed another petition against Obasanjo, acknowledged in writing by the EFCC on December 24.
On the job, petitions against her ethics and performance multiplied, many of them alleging that she accepted bribes and extorted suspects.
One petition sent to Acting President Jonathan in May 2009 by The Public Accountability League (PAL) alleged that Mrs. Waziri had engaged in negotiating commissions on cases before her. It said she had taken advantage of the banking reform and had since February that year collected monthly tolls of—among others—N50 million from Intercontinental Bank; N20 million from Access Bank; and NI0 million from Skye Bank.
Mr. Jonathan, I am sure, will remember that PAL also alleged that Mrs. Waziri had illegally used her office to acquire property in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and Dubai. It offered to present information and title deeds of the properties she had acquired in London.
There were other allegations, stories and petitions, including Mrs. Waziri’s giant scheme known as the Anti-Corruption Revolution Campaign (ANCOR). According to the PAL petition, she spent over N700 million on each of the launchings in Lagos and Abuja. “All the items used in the events never passed through due process as they were never advertised,” the petitioners claimed.
Mrs. Waziri was incompetent, she lied, and she misrepresented, but she was also something else: a gamer. In order to cover her tracks, she never sent to the National Assembly the annual report required by Section 37 of the EFCC Act 2004. It says, “The Commission shall, not later than 30th September in each year, submit to the National Assembly, a report of its activities during the immediately preceding year and shall include in such report the audited accounts of the Commission.”
That is the call that Mr. Ribadu was answering, on 27 September 2006, when he went to the Senate and established corruption cases against 18 serving and former governors. Among others, on that date, Ribadu announced that the Edo State Governor, Lucky Igbinedion, was being investigated for diversion of statutory allocations and 13 per cent oil revenue; that the investigation of Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu was of an international nature; and that the wife of the Governor of Bayelsa State, Patience Jonathan, was involved in money-laundering.
Mrs. Waziri wanted to avoid that legal obligation, which was made more urgent because the Commission acknowledged it on its website. It said, among others: “The EFCC Annual Report presented yearly to the National Assembly, is a compendium of all activities of all units of the Commission including Operations, Administration, Legal & Prosecution, Media, Accounts, Training School, etc.”
Upon arrival, Mrs. Waziri excised that acknowledgement from its prominent location on the website.
All of this, and much, much more, is why firing Mrs. Waziri quietly just won’t do: the woman must be probed.
But Mrs. Waziri is only part of the conundrum. The country is loaded with Waziris, many of them feared by well-placed people who befriend them in order to neutralize them. I suspect that when you have headed an organization as powerful as the EFCC, you know where all the bodies are buried, and by whom. In order to avoid the Waziris opening their mouths, they are desired and courted and protected—when they should be prosecuted.
However, if there is to be genuine progress, we must move beyond simply remove an erring Michael Aondoakaa or a Farida Waziri from office. Such people must provide a full account of their tenure, and face the law if need be.
Of greater importance, Mr. Jonathan must provide the leadership necessary to combat corruption and greed in Nigeria. A war against corruption cannot, by definition, be subleased or sub-tenanted. In the absence of a robust, combative leadership, corruption rides the horse of hypocrisy.
One of the areas Jonathan must look at, in addition to strengthening the judiciary, is amending the EFCC Act to make the Commission an independent body. He should fortify the Commission by restructuring it into two divisions, each headed by a Deputy Chairman. The ‘new’ division will focus on crimes with a foreign dimension, such as Advance Fee Fraud, money-laundering, Nigerian missions abroad, and the Okiro Panel.
I also suggest an independent Ombudsman, who will have responsibility for receiving and collating anti-corruption petitions from the public and the press for transmission to the appropriate agencies, and publishing a quarterly report on the war against corruption. Currently, nobody bothers about those stories or petitions.
Who will bell the cat? Mr. Jonathan, of course. But first, he must declare his assets, and thereby confront his credibility deficit.
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