It is my favorite season of the year again: the drama season. In September each year, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) submits its annual report to the National Assembly.
It is my favorite season of the year again: the drama season. In September each year, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) submits its annual report to the National Assembly.
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That leads to October, which I call National Hypocrisy Month, because that is when Nigeria’s leadership advertises itself when it awards the chieftaincy titles called National Honours. A troubling list of the 149 people who will receive them this year has already been published.
Actually, I do not know that the EFCC will submit a report this year. Its former chairman, Farida Waziri, never did. She played games with the idea, but she never did.
But the EFCC (Establishment) Act of 2004 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."
This means that the National Assembly ought to be offended if it does not receive such a report. It ought to be outraged whenever especially such a high-profile body as the EFCC, which is charged with chasing law-breakers, breaks the law. For several years, the Assembly has shown no such concern.
In 2006, the EFCC submitted its first report. That was the day its original chairman, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, named the most corrupt governor.
He also named the most unoriginal thief, one whom he noted with disgust, had emptied a safe with his bare gubernatorial hands.
That year, he named one woman among the army of corrupt governors and notable Nigerians.
Mr. Ribadu even wanted to name Nigeria’s most corrupt person, but the Senate President prevented him from doing so.
Only one governor received the honour and respect of the Commission: Cross River’s Donald Duke.
And all of that was simply the oral preface to the report. Mr. Ribadu departed.
That may have been the point at which the political elite decided his fate. By the next reporting season, Ribadu was out as boss of the Commission.
In came Mrs. Waziri, a woman with a fascinating record. A former policewoman, she had prior to her appointment actually had a relationship with the EFCC, helping our former governors with EFCC troubles. Several uncontested reports alleged that she had been sponsored to the EFCC job by some of those powerful political chieftains.
Mrs. Waziri was full of all the correct sound bites, but when it came to striking at the heart of corruption, she knew when to flash her expensive jewelry and leave the room. She flushed out of the EFCC Nigeria’s best-trained corruption hunters and dispersed them all over the country. Her case was so rotten that after a while, the Americans refused to talk to her at all.
It was obvious she would circumvent the duty of having to publish an annual report, and she did. Repeatedly.
Her tenure was scandalous, and the Americans, who were holding Mr. Goodluck Jonathan to his promises to “combat” corruption, were so loud about the need for him to do something that she made an easy target.
Mrs. Waziri was flushed out, finally, last November. Predictably, and despite a list of allegations against her as long as Abuja is ethically desolate, she was never probed let alone prosecuted. Like James Ibori after one last wave at Justice Marcel Awokulehin, little wonder she claimed victory as she handed her office over to her predecessor, reeling out irrelevant statistics.
But Mrs. Waziri is the past. The future, beginning this month, is Ibrahim Lamorde, the EFCC’s new boss.
Mr. Lamorde has been at the commission since the very beginning, and he has held all the top offices. This month, if and when he publishes the annual report, we will finally find out whether he is a man or a mouse.
To be sure, Mr. Lamorde’s task is not easy, and he must make the difficult choices, which is what leadership is all about.
His report, if he really does submit one, will need to be much more than an annual report; he cannot provide certain narratives dating from his inauguration or even from last September because that would be an intolerable and artificial vacuum.
Since he knows that there has been no annual report for several years, he must determine whether to collude with his predecessor and maintain that false history, or account for it so that the true story of the EFCC, as an institution, will be complete. This is how strong institutions function, and flourish.
Receiving the baton from Mrs. Waziri last November, Mr. Lamorde said, "I will be making more demand of every staff of EFCC, far more demand of professionalism, integrity and ethical conduct than had ever been made of each and every one of us, and I will not accept any excuse whatsoever for failure.”
I am so glad he said that, because he is the first member of staff of the commission, and from his first annual report, Nigerians will now get to learn exactly how he spells professionalism, integrity and ethical conduct in terms of himself.
Only last June, it was reported that the Independent and Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) had begun an investigation of Mrs. Waziri’s tenure over what an official called very “disturbing evidence of corruption.”
They include such illegalities during her tenure as issuing official clearance letters to former governors who were indicted or being investigated for corruption by Mr. Ribadu, such as Mr. Ibori and Victor Attah, a former governor of Akwa-Ibom State who is also wanted in the United Kingdom.
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Other cases include the controversial authorization given Victor Uwajeh, an Abuja based businessman, to act a consultant for the EFCC to help investigate cases of politically exposed persons (PEP), a profile Mr. Uwajeh allegedly parlayed into business for himself, for which he is now being prosecuted.
Since Mr. Lamorde’s assumption of the leadership of the EFCC, the commission has given every appearance of being busy. There have been a lot of pictures and a lot of words in a lot of different forums. There has been a lot of activism concerning small corruption cases.
If and when Mr. Lamorde produces a comprehensive report, we will finally be able to determine the true character of this mysterious institution.
This report will be the most important so far in the history of the EFCC. What Mr. Lamorde chooses to include will be as important as what he chooses to leave out. The work he is doing will be assessed alongside the job he has defined.
Now, we get to find out if the EFCC is fighting corruption fundamentally, or helping it.
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