EFCC And The Sudden Bites

It appears to be a season of arrest and arraignment for the anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The agency which seems to have been slumbering since had suddenly woken up since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office.

At the last count, not less than six ex-governors have been quizzed, and few others arrested and arraigned by the anti-graft agency in the last one month of Buhari’s administration. They include Mr. Martin Elechi, Alhaji Murtala Nyako, his son now senator, Abdul aziz, Sule Lamido and his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, Steve Orasanye and others. Has the agency eventually recover its groves or were its hands tied before? Who tied it and who untied it now? Is the sudden development evidence of the change mantra?

Will the ongoing quizzing and arresting of ex-governors, and other former public office holders alleged to have embezzled public fund while in office achieve the desired result?

It is true that there is no better time for the ex-governors to be arraigned and prosecuted for alleged corrupt practices in office than now that they have lost immunity. But this is not the first time the agency is massively arresting and arraigning ex-governors over alleged corrupt practices without proper and diligent prosecution.

In 2007, the then Chairman of the agency Mallam Nuhu Ribadu told Nigerians that more than half of the state governors that completed their second term in office were corrupt and would be arrested and prosecuted.

Many of these ex-governors were later arrested and arraigned with accompanied media hype that is not quite different from what is being witnessed now. At a time, Nigerians were told that files of the ex-governors were missing from EFCC office. That was after Madam Farida Waziri assumed office as Ribadu’s successor. For almost a decade now, many of these ex-governors are walking free on the streets and corridors of power.

While some of them have served as ministers, senators and party leaders, many of them are still senators making laws for the country today.

None of the corrupt charges filed against these ex-governors by the anti-graft agency had been diligently, logically, professionally and sincerely prosecuted by the anti-graft agency and the judiciary.

The highest level of success recorded so far by the agency against these ex-governors is the questionable and arrangee plea bargain, whereby these ex-governors will forfeit peanut from their huge loots, and will be left off the hook.

Will the agency summon enough power and courage to re-open the lingering cases of other ex-governors alongside the ones that are being arrested and arraigned now? And ensure they are prosecuted to logical conclusion in line with the change mantra?