Unending hurdles for anti-corruption crusade

For some time now, the new President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud, has been expressing concerns about the repositioning, re-equipping and re-tooling of the anti-graft institutions to confront the endemic problem of corruption on a consistent and sustainable basis in the country.
Mahmoud should be concerned because of his position in a body whose responsibility it is to establish and maintain an efficient operation of the judicial system.
So, curiously but apparently playing the role of a whistle blower, Mr. Mahmoud, last week, once again, alerted Nigerians to the fact that though the role of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in curbing corrupt practices was commendable, its mandate needed to be defined more narrowly and clearly. The Senior Advocate of Nigeria told his colleagues at the 56th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, that the NBA’s anti-corruption committee would be mandated to develop clear recommendations towards enhancing the fight against corruption and improving the effectiveness of the agencies involved.
He did not stop there. The NBA President boasted that his regime would implement urgent reforms for the repositioning of the judiciary and make it play crucial roles. He stated that a clean, efficient and knowledgeable judiciary was a foundation for building an orderly, peaceful and prosperous society. “The NBA under my watch will fight judicial corruption. We shall make the legal profession unattractive for corrupt lawyers,” he assured.
Specifically, however, going forward, Mahmoud’s stance is such that the prosecutorial duty of the anti-graft agency will be taken over by the legal body as the former’s duty will be limited to investigation alone. After the inaugural speech, the new NBA boss has received accolades and knocks from different quarters. Not many observers were shocked when the Human Rights Law Service, through its senior counsel, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, threw its weight behind Mahmoud. The argument of the former NBA president is that it was inappropriate for the EFCC to be imbued with the powers to investigate and prosecute crime at the same time. For the SAN, the EFCC cannot effectively tackle corruption as it is overloaded with the task of investigating corruption cases because international best practice demands that different agencies carry out such functions.
But it appears that the lawyers’ house is divided against itself. While the NBA boss campaigns for the association’s anticorruption committee to take up certain responsibility in the fight against corruption, some of his colleagues, who also believe the EFCC has been overwhelmed after 13 years of operation, are asking for the establishment of the National Prosecuting Agency. Their reasons: “We believe the powers to prosecute should be vested in an independent highly resourced prosecuting agency. The global practice is that one agency investigates, another prosecutes and the court adjudicates.”
However, the NBA has received knocks in some other quarters. Their discomfort over the seeming innocuous proposition is the fact that the NBA boss was silent on the reason for his position. The critics cannot comprehend how the redefinition of EFCC’s mandate in narrow terms fits into the demand by Nigerians and the vision of the Federal Government for a vibrant and courageous anti-corruption agency.
Others think Mahmoud may be holding brief for some political or business forces, which are not happy with the EFCC’s reinvigorated anti-graft campaign and are hellbent on emasculating the agency by stripping it of powers to prosecute.
Also, there are fears that Mahmoud may be allegedly nursing grudges against the commission, based on certain development that occurred when he was the counsel to the Attorney General of the Federation in the trial of the former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori, a case the EFCC lost in questionable circumstances.
A source in the anti-graft agency disclosed that the same documents from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London. “Mahmoud is also the Commission’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous perpetual injunction from arrest and prosecution by former Rivers State Governor, Chief Peter Odili, which is still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, many years after it was filed. It is too much of a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated few months after the Commission, in an unprecedented fashion, arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption,” the source said.
However, while the debate continues, it is befuddling that the FG and the National Assembly have been quiet on the issue. They appear to have failed in defending an agency that has earned the country recognition across the globe for curbing corruption, just because our Nero is fiddling while Rome is burning.
We, therefore, call on the President to use the powers at his disposal to rout the forces pulling back the hand of the anti-corruption clock. And if it requires him amending the laws to further strengthen the agency, he should seek the support of the Senate to so do.