Supreme Court has described as illegal, the prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of state governors who allegedly engaged in corrupt practices while in office.
The court, which also held that the EFCC has no power to look into the finances of state governments, removed the powers of the agency to prosecute a governor who stole money from his state and also barred the anti-corruption agency from investigating state governments’ contractors or anybody that was complicit in stealing or embezzlement of state money.
The ruling delivered last week by the apex court in Abuja, has therefore, given a reprieve to former Abia State Governor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu; former Imo State Governor, Senator Rochas Okorocha; and other state governors that are currently under prosecution by the anti-graft agency for allegedly stealing their states’ money while in office.
A former Governor of Nasarawa State and the current National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, is also being prosecuted by the EFCC over alleged illegal financial dealings and misappropriation of public funds.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration established the EFCC in 2003, in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), which named Nigeria as one of 23 countries that were non-cooperative in the international community’s efforts to fight money laundering, fraudulent banking transactions, miscellaneous offences, advance fee fraud, and other criminal acts that were financial and economic in nature.
The agency also strives to put an end to any act that breaks the penal and criminal codes.
However, in the suit numbered SC/CR/161/2020 and filed by Joseph Nwobike, SAN, against the Federal Government, the Supreme Court held that the EFCC, being a creation of federal law, does not have the powers to prosecute offences that were not corruption cases, and that the only corruption cases it can investigate are cases involving the movement of cash from Nigeria to foreign countries and corruption cases involving federal finances.
The governors, according to the ruling, can only be prosecuted by the attorney general of the state or the Nigerian police, or any other agency that was covered by the Criminal Code, Penal Code, or any other law.
With this development, the EFCC can no longer cite Sections 12 to 18, and Section 46 of the EFCC Amended Act 2004 in the prosecution of all kinds of cases whether emanating from the state or Federal Government, as its powers are regulated by the global action against corruption as regulated by the United Nations conventions which Nigeria is a signatory to.
The ruling also forbids the Federal Government from using the EFCC to control the governors of a state, and also to persecute any politician that was not in its good book.
The ruling also gives states liberty to make their own laws to establish anti-corruption agencies to deal with corruption cases emanating in the states, though the Criminal Code and Penal Code have provisions that deal with corruption.
Also, the ruling voided the powers of the EFCC to prosecute some former governors who are placed on travel watch list and their children that are also being investigated for corruption.
By virtue of the Criminal Code Law of Abia State, the police or the attorney general of Abia State are now empowered to prosecute those former governors and their children for stealing Abia State money.
Also, in states like Imo State where the sitting governor believes that former Governor Rochas Okorocha stole from Imo State, the police can investigate Okorocha and prosecute him in the state High Court for stealing the state money, if the investigation reveals that he stole money.
However, the powers of nolleprosequi of the attorney general of the state under Section 179 of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 and under the Criminal Code and Penal Code are still supervening and all-embracing.
EFCC, which Act was re-enacted in 2004, had docked a number of governors either at the end of their first term, the second term or were impeached over one corruption charge or the other.
By the time they completed their first and second tenures in office in 2003 and 2007, respectively, the anti-graft agency began to dock Joshua Dariye (Plateau), Jolly Nyame (Taraba), AbubakarAudu (Kogi), SaminuTuraki (Jigawa), Orji UzorKalu (Abia), AyodeleFayose (Ekiti), ChimarokeNnamani (Enugu), James Ibori (Delta), and Lucky Igbinedion (Edo), beginning with DiepreyeAlamieyeseigha (Bayelsa) in 2005.
Subsequently, BoniHaruna (Adamawa), RasheedLadoja (Oyo), and Michael Botmang (Plateau), AttahiruBafarawa (Sokoto), Ahmed Sani (Zamfara), Peter Odili (Rivers), AdamuAbdullahi (Nasarawa), Ibrahim Shekarau (Kano), DanjumaGoje (Gombe), IkediOhakim (Imo), SuleLamido (Jigawa), Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa), MurtalaNyako (Adamawa), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Martin Elechi (Ebonyi), Obong Victor Attah (AkwaIbom), Gbenga Daniel (Ogun), Jolly Nyame (Taraba), Adebayo Alao-Akala (Oyo) followed.
Former governors that were marked for prosecution by other anti-graft agencies like the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), include Senator BukolaSaraki, Senator Bola Tinubu, and ex-President Goodluck Jonathan (as the then governor of Bayelsa State).
This followed the resolve of the Joint Task Force empanelled by former President OlusegunObasanjo in June, 2006, comprising of ICPC, EFCC, CCB, the Department of State Services (DSS), and the Nigerian Police headed by Ribadu which named 15 former governors found to have breached the code of conduct for public officials and recommended them for prosecution in line with the Code of Conduct Bureau Act.
Those listed were James Ibori (Delta), Lucky Igbinedion (Edo), Ayo Fayose (Ekiti), BoniHaruna (Adamawa) Olugbenga Justus Daniel (Ogun), OlagunsoyeOyinlola (Osun), AdamuAliero (Kebbi), AtahiruBafarawa (Sokoto), Ibrahim SaminuTuraki (Jigawa), Ahmad Makarfi (Kaduna), Goodluck Jonathan (Bayelsa), ChimarokeNnamani (Enugu), AchikeUdenwa (Imo), Sam Egwu (Ebonyi), And Bola Tinubu (Lagos).