By Kolawole Ojebisi
The Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri, said he has not decided yet whether to join some of his counterparts to challenge the legality of the laws establishing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Fintiri noted that taking a hasty decision concerning the matter may be tantamount to throwing the baby away with the bathwater hence he needs to seek the legal advice of the Attorney General of Adamawa state.
The governor stressed that the EFCC has its usefulness and should be strengthened for better efficiency rather than being scrapped.
Fintiri aired his views while speaking during an interview on Channels Television at the weekend.
He said: “For me, it is not the right time to abolish the EFCC, whether it was established rightly or wrongly. We need to make it work better. We need to remove the politics that sometimes leads to claims of witch-hunting.”
He also criticised existing practice whereby the federal government takes custody of funds seized from states over fund embezzlement, calling it “a wrong practice.”
“I heard the Attorney General of Oyo State complaining after a court session that, even though funds are shared among the three tiers of government, federal, state, and local, the Federal Government often oversteps by questioning how states and local governments spend their money.
“Even when funds are appropriated, the Federal Government takes it into their treasury. I believe this practice should be discontinued,” he added.
Fintiri’s remarks is in response to a suit filed at the Supreme Court by 16 state governors challenging the legality of the laws establishing the EFCC.
It would be recalled that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, was established by an Act of the National Assembly on 12th December, 2002 by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Following the appointment and confirmation by the Senate, of the pioneer Executive Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and other administrative officers, the operational activities of the Commission commenced on April 13, 2003.
The establishment of the Commission was partly in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Money Laundering, also known by its French name, Grouped’actionfinancière (GAFI).
GAFI is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 (Group of Seven), an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America to develop policies to combat money laundering.
FATF had ranked Nigeria as one of the 23 countries that were non-cooperative in the combined efforts to fight money laundering globally. Due to identified inadequacies in the 2002 Establishment Act, the national Assembly repealed it and re-enacted the 2004 Establishment Act which was signed into law on 4th June 2004 by President Obasanjo.
Ribadu, the pioneer chairman of the EFCC, was handed the monumental task of midwifing the agency. Within a few months of its emergence on the scene, the Commission had attracted public consciousness having taken out of circulation many 419 kingpins (419 in Nigerian parlance, means offenders whose crimes are contrary to Section 419 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended). The commission would go on to achieve other landmark results in its fight against corruption.
Over the years the commission has been alleged by politicians, especially those in opposition, of turning itself to be a lapdog of the political party in power.
Recently those at the forefront of the campaign for the abolishment of the commission have been state governors despite being shielded by immunity
