– Femi Falana (SAN) says the EFCC cannot adequately fight graft
– Falana says his assertion is based on the fact that the FG has not funded the commission appropriately
– The senior advocate said fighting corruption is very expensive
Top Nigerian lawyer and human right advocate, Femi Falana, has said the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) cannot fight corruption to the fullest capacity.
Falana stated this while speaking at a forum organised by the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) in Lagos on Wednesday, April 19.
The forum had the theme “Perpetual Hearings and Delayed Justice on Corruption Cases in Nigeria: Causes and Way-Forward”.
“The Federal Government has not funded the EFCC the way the commission should be funded. In fact, the funding is not even there at all.
“This government has spent about 2 billion dollars on the war against insurgency in the last two years but has not spent 2 million dollars on the fight against corruption, and yet we want the EFCC to be very effective.
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Falan says funding is crippling the antigraft war in Nigeria
“The fact is that fighting corruption is very expensive. Britain spent 2 million pounds just to prosecute and convict a former governor in Nigeria for corruption.
“So the EFCC needs funds to diligently investigate and prosecute corruption cases. The government should provide the wherewithal for the commission,“ he said.
In an earlier report by ZENITHBLOG.com, Some top lawyers revealed why various anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies lost high-profile corruption cases and made recommendation on how they could be reversed.
On Monday April 3, 2017, the Federal High Court in Lagos lifted the order barring a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome, from accessing his Guaranty Trust Bank account into which he received N75m legal fee from the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele
Punch reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had on February 7, 2017 obtained an interim order stopping Ozekhome from dissipating the N75m on the grounds that it formed part of proceeds of alleged criminal activities of Fayose.
ZENITHBLOG.com previously reported that the EFCC claimed that the N75m which Fayose paid to Ozekhome was part of the N2.26bn arms procurement funds, which a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), allegedly looted.
The anti-graft agency claimed to have traced N1.22bn out of the N2.26bn, which Dasuki allegedly looted, to Fayose. On that basis Justice Abdulaziz Anka had on February 7 frozen Ozekhome’s account for 120 days.
Displeased, however, Ozekhome approached the court urging the court to vacate the interim order. In his ruling, Justice Anka granted Ozekhome’s prayer and dismissed the counter-affidavit filed in opposition by the EFCC.
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The judge said though it was not in doubt that the N75m came from Fayose, Ozekhome could not be held liable because there was no restriction on Fayose’s account as of the time the N75m was paid to his law firm.
The ruling marked the beginning of the streak of losses that hit the various government’s frontline anti-corruption and law enforcement institutions that week.
In a manner similar to how the Nigeria’s seat of power shifted from Lagos to Abuja in 1991, barely 24 hours after the EFCC lost the case against Ozekhome, the ship of failure moved from Lagos to Abuja.
Commenting on the turn of events in the Federal Government’s anti-corruption fight, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana said while there were other inherent problems, the trend of failure of high-profile cases being handled by the anti-graft agencies was due to official negligence and lack of inter-agency cooperation.
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