SUNDAY INTERVIEW ON EFCC CHAIRMAN
Forty years old Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa is consumed with passion for his job and country. Young and bursting with energy and ideas, he charts a new path of credibility for the anti-graft agency. In this first major and exclusive interview with Shaka Momodu and Kingsley Nwezeh, Bawa addresses practically all the concerns swirling around his emergence and operations of the commission. Excerpts:
You have been on tour of EFCC offices since your assumption of duty as Chairman. What have you found or observed and how do you hope to improve what you met on ground?
Okay, thank you. Let me start by thanking you for finding time to come, finding it worthy to fly in from Lagos. Thank you very much. Well, the tour of duty is something that came naturally. I went out there to see things for myself, to have an interaction with the staff, for them to see their new chairman, who has been one of them. And then, of course, I needed to also remind them of the fact that the task before us is enormous. We need to re-energise ourselves to do what is expected of us. You know, the expectations are very, very high.
We have the support of the government, I think the majority of Nigerians and to also remind them of the fact that anybody that is found wanting, sanctions would be applied to the point of getting out of the system. And then of course, to hear their own complaints. You can’t run an office with disgruntled staff. Yes, we have been around for a very long time. But it is good that you have advice from them, because nobody has the monopoly of knowledge. That has been nice. And it’s been worth the while. I’m still going round. I still have about three zones to go, I hope to achieve that before the end of the month.
It’s already 100 days since you assumed office, what have you achieved so far even though 100 days is pretty too soon for an appraisal?
So many things. The confidence is back. A lot of people and the staff are happy with the administration. We have come up with a lot of policy documents that we are working on, training policy, policy on sexual harassment, health policy, communication policy etc, because you can’t have an institution that does not have processes and procedures. We have also worked on Standard Operational Procedures, you know, back and forth with the printers, before the end of the month, we will have it in place. That is very key, if you want to have a strong institution we need to have these things in place.
We have also embarked on several renovation activities. Contracts were awarded in order for us to have befitting offices in our zonal offices across the country.
We have worked on our new ranking structure. We have it in place now to be at par with other security agencies in the country.
We have been having problems in that regard. We are looking at the issue of promotion – it has brought a lot of problem. We hope to conclude on that aspect soon. We have engaged our strategic partners within and outside the country. We have renewed relationship with a lot of agencies trying to forge synergy. So, we have done quite a bit on that, and of course, you know, cases that we are working on. I don’t want to dwell much on that. We have done quite a lot. So, by and large, we are working quietly and the result and statistics are out there.
EFCC has been known for media trial of persons under investigation. Is there a deliberate strategy to move away from trial by media of suspects until you gather all your facts before you proceed to court for prosecution?
You see, we are in a democracy. People have the right to say whatever they want to say, trials happen only in court and there are three parties to it. We, the prosecution, we present our case, the defence would present its case to the court and the court decides.
Now, rightly or wrongly, you the media, once matters are in court, you have the right to go and get the facts – reporters, like you are always in court to report what has happened. So you have been accusing us wrongly of this. You did mention something that we do media trial, and then we rush to court. You see, there is no agency of government that has worked and contributed to the development of law in this country in the last 15 years than the EFCC. Nobody has challenged me on that.
We go to court. We love going to court. We have 90 to 95% success rate in court on the cases that we have charged. So, it is not about stating the facts and losing cases. Assuming we have 70% success rate in court, is it not an A that you will give us but as you know, we have over 90% success rate in court. But then, of course, as you know, we have changed our strategy in that regard as well. And that is why maybe you are not seeing people under investigation being mentioned in the media. But there was never a deliberate attempt anyway to do that. We are just trying to do things by the book but maybe that is the change of strategy that you people have observed. We are working quietly and diligently on cases without necessarily drawing public attention.
What is your decision on policemen assigned to EFCC, are you going to retain their services or you want to build your own team?
Wait, let me let me remind you, I know that you are aware of how the EFCC started operations. The National Assembly passed an Act and the EFCC was established. A young Nigerian policeman, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, was appointed the chairman. A paper was given to him: “you are the Chairman” and he started. So the EFCC from inception had no staff of its own.
Then, the Chairman and the Commission Secretary and the board, they had to come from somewhere – seconded officers that will come and do the job. Which better place than the Nigerian Police to start from, because we are more or less doing that kind of related thing? Some of the laws were being enforced by the police before the coming of the EFCC. That is how we started.
But from the very beginning, even the founding fathers knew that a time will come when the EFCC has to start training its staff and officials to do all the functions of the commission, and that is why by December 2004, they had recruited the first set of officers and trained them. As at today, we have the Superintendent cadre up to Course 8 and then we have the Inspector cadre and the Detective Assistant cadre, so it is something that will happen naturally. When the time comes, when we can take care of ourselves, all policemen and other seconded staff from other agencies will have to allow the Commission to be fully operational on its own and it’s going to happen sooner than later.
Let’s go back to the question that you make arrests before conducting watertight investigation. Sometime before you assumed office, Justice Auta hosted your predecessor and one of the complaints he made was that the Commission doesn’t, in some cases, investigate and have a watertight case, before rushing to court only to lose such cases. It’s important to get more clarity on this. This is something that a judge saw and complained about.
Let me start by saying that you are the one quoting Justice Auta, not me. Now let me answer that. There are different types of offences or crimes that we are investigating, hence different types of scenarios can unfold regarding how suspects are being brought in.
Some months back as a zonal head in Lagos, I received a letter from the Nigerian Customs Service that I should come and take over a suspect that they arrested at the airport with thousands of ATM cards. I went there and they handed over the suspect to me. So, the first thing is that I have a complaint, I have an exhibit and I have a suspect. What do I do? I should now leave him and say, “Okay, go I will investigate this ATM card and later I will call you for interview”? No. At least, presumably, I have to go with him and take his statement. You understand? We receive intelligence also on a daily basis that we work on. We carry out surveillance, we carry out other intelligence processes before we go for arrest.
By the time we enter a building to effect an arrest, for instance, we are sure of our case. All these cybercrime suspects, sometimes, we arrest over 50. There was a time we arrested 70 at a time in one place. 70 young Nigerians and we brought them with us, with all their digital items etc. They were suspected to be involved in cybercrime and then you bring them in, you assess them and then those that you have identified that are into it, you continue investigations and you will see that they have obtained somebody’s money by false pretences. Clearly, we are seeing the documentary evidence and we then say, “We don’t want to talk to you, just go, let somebody take you on bail. Okay, you, the victim, come, did they actually take your money?” Then we now write to the bank to make inquiries. No, no, no.
We start with him and then continue our investigation. Then there are instances or cases, where you are investigating for example, an allegation that a commissioner for local government has diverted funds. You carry out a detailed investigation. You call the complainant, you write, you conduct surveillance, you do all of these. You must have some semblance that that activity has happened before moving to arrest.
Remember, even when we have charged somebody to court he is still presumed to be innocent, it’s just an allegation until the court says that you have committed that offence. But for us to be seen that we rush to arrest somebody, and then we take them to court, and then we lose a case? If it had happened, maybe it’s one out of a million and officers that have carried it out are supposed to be sanctioned.
Again, this is very important, we have a different department that investigates.
I was coming to that …
It is after they have completed their investigation, or during the course of the investigation, as the case may be, they engage our lawyers and the lawyers would be guiding them during the course of investigation through any issue that might arise. They will receive that file, they will vet it to see whether or not there is a prima facie case against the person.
Was this the practice before or its a new way of doing things?
No. It has always been the practice and most often, three issues normally come out of this. The lawyers will advise: Yes, there is a case. We are going to court. No, there is no case; the matter is civil or there is a case but please, you need to do ABC&D. So, they will return it for further investigation. And once those items, the line items that they have identified have been dealt with, you will return it to them, then, they will draft their charges. We don’t go to magistrate court, we file proof of evidence, points to prove that look, this offence of OBT that we are charging is there. So, that’s why I said the issue of investigation, and lawyers doing their bit are thoroughly done.
It’s good you are making this clarification, because intelligence shows that most cases are filed at the whims of the chairman. If the chairman wants a case to go to court and even if the lawyers recommend otherwise, that case will be rushed to court irrespective.
First and foremost, I doubt very much if that was the case before. I was not Chairman then but I can tell you for certain, I did not have that experience. I doubt much if that was the case.
Secondly, coming down to me as a person with all sense of modesty. I’m a practitioner. I’m currently in the witness box in one matter that has been on for years. I have testified across the length and breadth of this country in many cases.
So, I know what it takes to be there, to give evidence based on the case that you are prosecuting. If you don’t have facts, you don’t have facts. If you have facts, you have facts, do you understand? We have promised Nigerians that we are going to follow the provisions of the Constitution; the rule of law should be our guide.
We want to do this thing without fear or favour, without any ill will, then why should you try to say that there is no evidence to support a case and then you’re going to court, I doubt if it has happened. I doubt much if it has happened before.
You have said repeatedly that you will fight corruption and not fight corrupt people. What do you mean by that?
We will fight corrupt people and we will also fight corruption. But within that, we have realised that there is difference between fighting corrupt people and fighting corruption. It’s all part of our new effort towards preventive avenues, rather than laying more emphasis on enforcement, because studies have shown time and time again that it is far cheaper to prevent corruption or fraud than to fight it.
Here is what we’re saying: we are saying we want to be proactive. It is about good governance, it is about looking at processes and procedures, identifying the red flags, advising the government on how they can tighten the loose ends, vulnerabilities to fraud, corruption, as it has happened and those are the issues that we are looking at in terms of trying to fight corruption.
Even recently, I was telling a media outlet that look, we are embarking on a series of corruption risk assessment on MDAs in this country, to look at their vulnerabilities to fraud and corruption and that is the systemic way of fighting corruption.
We are also looking at avenues in which it will be very difficult for people that are corrupt to launder their proceeds of crime. We are working tirelessly on the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering, how they can be on top of their game to deal with Designated Non-Financial Institutions (DNFIs), those are the things that we talked about in terms of fighting corruption itself.
When I came on board, we created a brand new Department of Intelligence to be able to sift through, gather information for us so that we would be intelligence-driven in our investigation.
Fighting corrupt people, who have already done it, it’s about investigating you and charging you to court and dealing with you. Now, if we are concentrating on that alone, chances are that your successor in office will also have that opportunity of committing what you have committed. So, we have been dealing with these issues without necessarily going back.
Okay, why did you commit this? What happened? What were the opportunities that you had to commit this crime? Our aim is to deny your successor that opportunity to commit the same crime like the man who was there before. We are looking to block the vulnerabilities in that system. So, we are looking at all of that, then, we will advise you accordingly on that. And, that is what I meant by that phrase fighting corruption, not corrupt people.
Lets talk more on internet fraud. It is alarming looking at the number of suspects arrested in the last one year, more than 1000, are you not worried? Second, how are you working to enhance your relationship with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)?
Let me start with your last point. FBI is perhaps one of the biggest international partners that we have had from the very beginning and they have always been helpful to us in terms of capacity development, sharing of information and intelligence, training and retraining of our staff here in Nigeria and in America, including sponsoring our officers to the FBI Academy in Qantico, Virginia and all that for several years. So, we have maintained that relationship and will sustain it. Even when I came on board, we have had a series of meetings with them in that regard. So, it’s going to continue. If there’s one thing that I am worried about, it is the issue of cybercrime and it is with mixed feelings and reactions. People have tagged me the hope of the youth and all of that, and here, we are – the people in my constituency are the ones involved in internet crime.
It is something to be worried about. It’s something that we have observed, it’s something we are working on and let me give you the statistics. From January to the 11th of June 2021, we have arrested 1502 suspects across the length and breadth of this country. It is something very huge and you know, we are dealing with very smart people here.
Honestly, I will not sit here to tell you the specifics of what we are doing but we’re doing a lot. As I said, we have created a department and are looking into the future and strategising. We are working with even the state governments, where some of these things evolve and all of that. And then, of course, you know, the media is working on very serious campaign strategy to contain the issues of cybercrime, corruption and fraud.
You mean the media department of EFCC?
Yes. So, we are working. We are working in that regard.
You are the first core detective of the agency that has come on board as chairman, having been at the commission from the very beginning to get into this topmost position. Does this place on you a unique advantage to appreciate the problems of the commission?
Certainly. One, I have four predecessors, that by the grace of God, are all still alive. I can easily go and say, “See what has happened, what is this”? We learn from what they have done. There is an international study on the issue of institutional memory, anybody that is seeking any employment and then to higher position, those that are from inside can boast of institutional memory, that you cannot get from anywhere, you cannot go to the four walls of any university to get it. It’s an advantage to me and of course, to the system itself.
And nobody can come, for instance, to tell me something about the system. I am not saying I have the monopoly of knowledge of things here. But at least, I have a clear idea of some of these things and you know what? We were able to achieve all that we have been able to achieve within 100 days because we know what the problems are, we know what the challenges are.
In my interactions with colleagues over the years, we have been discussing some of these problems and issues and that is why we were able to set the ball rolling immediately. So, it is more of an advantage, and I think government realises that, and that is why my colleagues and I will not disappoint Nigerians and the government for the confidence that they have reposed in us to carry the mantle of leadership going forward.
Your predecessors have always battled image problems, reputation issues. Immediately after the announcement of your appointment, stories started to emerge in the media that you did this, you did that. Tell us how this reputational problem might have affected the credibility of the Agency. A lot of people were truly worried, when they heard the allegation against you.
Yes. You see, the job is a very dangerous job. You are stepping on many toes, powerful toes. People that sit on resources, unimaginable resources, have the capacity to engage the media, going to even compromise some judges to come up with several issues. So, people are always out there to say things that they themselves know to be false, but they say these things anyway as attacks. What even baffles me more is the fact that even with all the allegations against my predecessors, nobody has come to say that this house belongs them, this property belongs to them or this investment belongs to them or that investment belongs to them.
Nobody has said that. The allegation has been that “oh, recovered funds are not seen, oh, this one, that one”, all just making false claims. Somebody will just come up with newspaper articles from left, right, center. How on earth is it possible steal from recovered funds? It is practically impossible for any staff of the commission or chairman to do that.
I have not touched a case file in the last one month. I only see reports. It is practically impossible for any staff of the commission to move a naira that is recovered. What for? How? Because it is on record the person that the money is recovered from knows before the recovery is made, statements are there clearly stating what was recovered not to talk of a building that has been recovered.
Tell me, how is it going to be done? Okay, it is in the file. Property A has been recovered. Let’s say 23A Awolowo Road, Ikoyi has been recovered and then the file is here and the chairman will say, “Mr. X handover this property to Mr. Y because the owner is my friend”? How? This issue that you raised, I remember, even in the Senate, Senator Mohammed Adamu Aliero asked me the same question and I told them, I said, “Look, I never sold anything. The commission flew some officers from Abuja and they went, and they saw some of these products”.
Okay, maybe this is an opportunity for me to tell you what really happened
I resumed office in Port Harcourt in January 2019. Before I got there, from January to December 2018, that zonal office recorded 33 convictions. But from January to December 2019, that I was heading that zone, we recorded 216 convictions. What happened, there was a huge problem of arrests of people, allegedly illegally dealing with petroleum products and more than 500 trucks were parked at 6 Division of the Nigerian Army and cases were neither moving forward nor backwards and I will tell you why. So, we came and we saw the problem and we studied why the cases were not moving.
Okay, let me tell you what happened. Normally, in the case of illegal bunkering, we don’t arrest, you understand, the army, the navy arrest the offenders. So, an arrest is made of this truck suspected to be carrying illegally refined products. The army will now call the EFCC, come and take over this case. Normally, the drivers and the boys have run away. So, we have only two leads, the number plate and the product itself. So we take sample of the product and send it to the lab, the DPR, and NNPC, 99 percent of the time, it will come back as adulterated AGO. So, with that alone, you know, we can develop our case. The second phase is, we have established a case, who committed the crime? With that we can develop our case as per the provisions of the Miscellaneous Offences Act.
But the second thing you have established is the crime, now who committed the crime? You have only one lead, which is the number plate. So, you take it. It was then I observed something that well, let me put it this way, over 90 per cent of haulage businesses are conducted by the people from the northern part of the country. Going to the south to bring these products and then bring in other products from the north, back to the south.
So, what happens after? You write to the licencing authority in Bauchi State, may be the number plate, an Azare (a town in the State) number and that’s where the problem is. Three scenarios will emerge. One, they will write to us to say that the number is fake. So, where are you going to go? You can neither go forward nor backwards, because you are looking for a criminal and unlike a vessel that is a juristic person, you can’t charge only a truck to court.
Then the second instance is that they will write us to say the vehicle belongs to Mr. X and that his address is, lets say, No 15 Awolowo Road, Azare, Bauchi. The telephone number is perfect. So, I will now call or write a letter to Mr. X, who would call and say, yes, I am the owner of this truck, but actually I gave it to my driver. My driver is Mr. Y and I have been looking for him. What I know of him is that he also stays in Azare, Bauchi.
So, there is a provision in the EFCC Establishment Act, Section 25 Subsection 3 that says means of conveyance should be forfeited to the government. Sometimes the owner is not aware that his means of conveyance is being used to perpetrate any kind crime. So, Mr. X has come to say you know, yes, he gave the truck to the driver, but he as the owner of the truck was not privy to what use the truck was being put to. So, the onus is now on us to find that driver to come and answer for the offence, but we may not be able to find him.
So, going by the provisions of the law, we secure the forfeiture of the trucks and then the management of the Commission gave approval for the auctioning and officers flew in from Abuja to conduct that exercise. Where the court ordered that some of the trucks should be returned to the owners, they were returned.
When my appointment was announced, some people started screaming. There was even a publication that I made 20 billion naira, they said, “that boy sold everything”, that I was a billionaire you know, when I came on board! That is not the end of the matter, they will come up with other things. It’s part of the plan to distract and damage someone’s reputation.
You requested for the asset declaration form a former governor of Lagos and strong man of Lagos politics, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, when you were head of Lagos Zonal office. What has become of that and what was the motivation?
You asked me a question earlier about arresting people before investigation and now you’re saying why didn’t we arrest Tinubu? Why didn’t you just say, “arrest him”. Investigation is ongoing. When you are investigating matters like this, they don’t end in a day. Thousands of investigations are going on, on a daily basis. You understand? You know, you are from the media. After you will say we are doing media trial.
There is a petition against Tinubu by the former Managing Director of Alpha Beta. He wrote a petition to the EFCC. You were the head of Lagos zone.
He wrote to me?
No, he submitted it in Abuja. Your predecessor failed to investigate that petition. Instead, they turned the tables on the former MD of Alpha Beta, who alleged that over N100 billion money laundering, corruption, tax evasion by that company linked to Tinubu. Why is nothing being done about it? And are you going to take it on, now that you are the chairman of the EFCC?
Well, petitions are normally investigated based on their own merit. Every petition that EFCC receives, we have what is called petition vetting committees in all zonal offices. So, of course, the zonal head and the chairman have the discretion, based on what is their assessment of the petition.
On these committees, we have lawyers, we have investigators that will sit down and review all petitions and advise. Some they reject, because they are civil in nature, you know, they communicate that to the petitioners or complainants and some they will advise for investigation and thorough look at the allegations contained and those will be assigned for the appropriate action.
Any petition that comes, based on his own merit, it would be treated.
The petition against Apha Beta is over two years, yet no action on it.
I will confirm from the records.
It has taken two years, tell us, are you going to open investigation into it?
Just the way that trial can take you 12 years, investigation, financial crime investigation, can take a bit of time, it can take you to the four corners of the world and back. We always set our target as the court. That is why we have to take our time to do investigation. So, it’s not an issue that you are feeling that an investigation has taken two years, has taken four years, five years… after all, the lawyers will say that time does not run out on criminal investigation. Somebody can be investigated on an action that he did 30 years ago, 40 years ago.
Why are you investigating the PDP finances? Is that within the mandate of the EFCC? One would have thought that it is INEC that should look into their finances or not EFCC.
Look, we received a complaint and based on its own merit and according to the process, that I told you earlier, it was investigated and we saw that yes, there is an issue there. And it was assigned just like any other complaint. Is INEC investigating allegations of diversion? Does INEC have the power to investigate anything related to allegations of money laundering?
That is not what INEC was set up to do, that is what the EFCC and other related agencies are set up to do and that is what we are doing in that regard. So, it is nothing new to us, it is just like any other complaint and that is why we did not set out, for instance, to go and arrest people that are alleged to have committed the offence. We wrote a letter to them, you know, come and explain to us and that was it.
Lagos State Government recently signed a law that prevents the EFCC from investigating matters concerning officials of the state and mandates the EFCC to transfer cases it is currently handling to the state anti-corruption commission. What is your take on this and what becomes of EFCC’s role in investigating state officials if Lagos State or any other state has its own anti- corruption body. What’s your reaction to this development?
You asked four questions in one. I will start by telling you that I am aware that Kano and Bayelsa have started their own anti-corruption agencies. But those laws do not contain anything that says that EFCC has nothing to do with investigating their states, they would rather be complementing what the EFCC is doing. You see, there are a lot of Supreme Court decided cases on this particular issue. From the briefing that I have received, those things are already there.
The EFCC is a creation of the National Assembly, which of course, supersedes when it comes to that. So, there’s already a federal legislation. We are yet to see how the EFCC is going to hand over cases that they are interested in to any state government or see any correspondences to that effect. We are investigating our matters. In that regard, we are making progress. In that regard, let me ask you, what do you think that that law is for?
Well, a lot of people see it as an effort to protect certain officials of the state government
So, let’s, let’s go to the next question.
But it is directly related. Do you think states have the capacity to investigate and prosecute the cases against state officials? I mean, tools, investigative skills?
What I can say is that law enforcement is a very, very expensive venture and requires a lot of training and retraining with trends of crime, you know, developing every day, every second, and you need to catch up with people doing that. Take, for instance, issues of money laundering, where, maybe, somebody somewhere has laundered the proceeds of crime, let’s say somewhere in Sokoto and you are in Oyo State or you have properties, a lot of things will come up. Maybe he has properties in America, you need to carry out request, involving mutual legal assistance treaty between let’s say, Nigeria and America, whether or not the American government will recognise that. So, a lot of things left, right and center are at play regarding it. It is very, very expensive. Then the issue of capacity. Yes, anybody can develop a capacity to do that. But let’s wait and see.
Your predecessor once complained about terror sponsors using banks to launder money. He complained about one NGO in the North-east having 50 bank accounts. He met with bankers in Maiduguri and urged them to work with your commission in that regard. Are you continuing that effort and what is progress so far?
We are continuing on that. We are working on it. Issues of terrorism is not something that will come out in public. See, what he said is true. We are working on building on it and working with all the relevant law enforcement agencies.
Sometime ago, you called on bank officials to declare their assets. Many thought that was outside your purview. But, curiously, you are dealing with politicians already, and you have just 1,700 staff, do you think you have the capacity to deal with all that?
Let me start by answering the five questions, you asked in one, the five issues you raised. The first one is that we are well over 3000 staff and not 1700. The second issue which you raised, if you look at the provisions of Section 7 in addition to the EFCC Establishment Act itself, we are empowered to enforce certain provisions of the Money Laundering Provisions Act, Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, Failed Banks Recovery of Debt Act Miscellaneous Offences Act and Provisions of the penal code and criminal code as it relates to economic and financial crimes as well as advanced fraud and other related offences.
Subsequently, of course, you have the cybercrime Act, which we are empowered to enforce. You know, issues of advice that we are also assisting and FIRS and NCC and all of that now. That’s what we set out to do.
We have the capacity. We are embracing technology to deal with issues as they come up. So, that is on this side, on the other side, I did not say that banks will come and declare their assets to us. It is not within our powers to demand for that. But it is within our powers to demand for information. You and associate/s without any hindrance or failure must give us information on demand.
If you are an individual or corporate entity or companies, it is an offence not to comply. That is why we write to individuals, politicians to submit to us so that we will compare, because if you are a suspect, before us, you are expected to even fill our own declaration of assets form here. We write to CCB, for instance, to furnish us what you declared, yes, we write them to give us information on what you declared so that we can make comparison. We have our reason for saying that come June 1st, we are going to demand for the declaration of assets. That’s what I said. So, it doesn’t matter whether you have not declared, it doesn’t matter whether you have done anything, but what we said is that we are going to demand for it.
You understand this? This law is in a 1986 law. It was passed when I was just six years old. Yes, it’s an old law and they are expected to declare their assets annually. So, what we said is that we just need copies of those things, we have already demanded. On June 1st, you know, we wrote to all the banks, the MDS and DMDs should submit copies of their declaration of asset form.
Well, the bankers said they are not afraid to declare their assets
Well, let’s see.
There’s a speculation that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, was behind your appointment and that in fact, you are related to him. Is that true?
Yes, it’s true that the Attorney General and myself are from the same state. No, it is not true that we are related. Look, there is no appointment that happens that somebody somewhere did not recommend. But I think what matters most is whether or not the person so appointed, has the capacity and the capability to do that job. And the performance that comes out after that, that is what is more important.
Somebody, someone will do the job. As we have said, people always talk, people will always find something to say about somebody. What am I saying is, for instance, if you are a governor of a state, you are going to appoint some commissioners, you are going to appoint some people, that is, not even out of place, you know, if somebody has the powers and is appointing somebody that is even related to him, he may be his younger brother from that same state.
Are we saying that the President doesn’t have enough information to do the nomination? Even if somebody recommended someone, the President must approve, you understand? We have to learn to respect our leaders in this country, we have to learn to trust our leaders. Now the President has done that. And then I was before 109, distinguished senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not senators of Kebbi State, but the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
You saw what happened, you know, questions were asked, and in all modesty, we were able to answer them. You know, the follow-up comments that some of them have made, regarding that and that is why we are here, and its a sacrifice that I have made on a personal note. This was a career that I hoped will last for 35 years but here am I, after only 17 years, I happen to have reached the zenith of my career and I can leave the job at any time. You know, it’s something huge but we are not deterred about it, we are not complaining about it, we are being challenged about it, and God willing, we are going to make ourselves and the country proud.
In a nutshell, capture your vision of EFCC
My vision of EFCC is to have an institution that can run on autopilot, curtailing the usage of discretion, and intelligence-driven investigation to be the bedrock of it, usage of technology, and an agency with very sound staff and procedures and one that is a respecter of the rule of law.
Remember, our vision is to rid this country of economic and financial crimes And as I said, I told senators that, “look, I envisage an EFCC where, as the chairman, I will say, ‘officer go and do this and he will look at me and say, sir, I understood what you said but I am not going to do it, because so and so Section of the Standard Operating Procedure says this and that’ and I will say, ‘thank you for reminding me, let’s go ahead and do it that way’”.
That is the EFCC that I am envisaging. Look, this is the only country that we have. We must work hard to ensure we have a better Nigeria going forward and God willing, we are on the right track to achieving that.
Let me use this opportunity to thank you and to call on the media to be on our side to always have an objective, balanced and fair reportage of issues as they unfold. Thank you very much.
