Governor Matawalle Vs Bawa: Why EFCC Needs To Evolve -By Aliyu Sulaiman Babasidi

When Bello Matawalle, the outgoing governor of Zamfara accused the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa of requesting for bribe, I knew we were in for another possible cycle where the commission’s heads usually get ‘embarrassed out of office as a result of one scandal or skirmish or the other. This is an early smoke to a usually heavy fire that would follow, if the commission’s historical trend is anything to go by.

Groups of ‘civil society’ organizations have also published damning allegations against the chairman, calling for his head immediately. The chairman’s supporters will be quick to call the recent campaign as corruption attempting to fight back, since the outgoing governor of Zamfara, is said to be under investigation by the commission, for the possible diversion of 70 billion of the pillaged state’s funds. What is readily obvious about his outburst is that, while the governor is apprehensive about spending days in the commission’s detention center and answering a series of queries, he would rather that the commission also queries members of the outgoing Federal Government. Moreover, even the chairman of the anti-money laundering watchdog is not clean, according to him. By this logic, we would have in our hands an ‘orgy’ of detentions and investigations, so much so that his accusation will be hidden under bigger scandals. A move I consider to be clever by half.

Well, I am neither among the EFCC chairman’s supporters nor that of the Governor’s. I am more concerned about the strength and integrity of the watchdog as the protector and regulator of the country’s ‘economic sanity’. If elected governors can be justifiably protected from prosecution by the immunity clause of the constitution, why are there no provisions to protect the anti-corruption agency from undue political interventions, distractions and intimidation?

The EFCC is not only engaged in fighting with and recovering funds from thieving politicians and civil servants, they are effectively in charge of protecting the economy of the country from sabotage and mismanagement. Terrorism, human trafficking and illicit drug dealing deal more with funds than in anything, which falls more under the jurisdiction of the EFCC more than any other agency.

It is agreeable that the agency, just like any other organization, is bound to have bad eggs, which could include its head. This does not in any way imply that the EFCC as an institution should be dragged into the mud. No individual should be free from prosecution, as a matter of fact, however, some positions should be immune from probe and intimidation. The EFCC perfectly fits this profile. Therefore, Mr Bawa may be prosecuted for any allegation, but not while he is chairman of the EFCC. This protection should last for the duration of his tenure as chairman, of course.

In England, for example, the National Crime Agency (NCA) which is in charge of the response to serious and organized crime, set up an agency akin to our EFCC, called the National Economic Crime Center (NECC), which also contains several other law enforcement agencies that collaborate to fight economic crime. What this sort of formation does is that it has effectively (or inadvertently) eliminated any ‘figure heads’ that may be an easy target for political attacks or interferences.

Moreover, a mix-grilled interagency collaboration will also mean that each unit will act as watch-dog over the other, and also under another anti-corruption center, and not reporting to their original law enforcement agencies.

What am I implying? The EFCC needs to evolve and match these challenges of political interference and possible executive excesses, to make the agency very complex and difficult to access. Giving the commission a complex, multi-level and non-linear organogram, for starters, will assist in achieving that. Each member of the organogram will have a clearly defined performance indicator and reporting line which should be simple enough to fathom. At the same time, the powers of the chairman or head of the commission are protected, as well as monitored.