The Supreme Court has described as illegal, the prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) of State governors who allegedly stole while in office.
The apex court, which also held that the EFCC has no power to look into the finances of States, 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 government contractors or anybody that was complicit in stealing or embezzlement of State money.
The ruling delivered last week by the apex court in the country has therefore given a reprieve to former Abia state governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, Rochas Okorocha, former Imo governor, and other state governors that are currently under prosecution by the anti-graft agency for allegedly stealing their states’ money while in office.
Recall that a former governor of Nasarawa State and the current national chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, is also being prosecuted by the EFCC over alleged illegal financial dealings and misappropriation of funds.
This development may have dealt a blow to the anti-corruption stance of the federal government, as the apex court has now cleared the way for State governors to loot their states dry.
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 are 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 is 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 (UN) 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 is not in its good book.
States are now free 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.
In states like Imo State, where the sitting governor believes that former governor Rochas Okorocha stole from the State, the Police can now investigate Okorocha and prosecute him in the State’s High court for stealing the State’s funds, if the investigation reveals that he stole money.
The implication of the Supreme Court ruling is that a governor and his cronies can now steal as much as they want from the State, and all the governor needs to do is to install a successor who would watch the back of the old governor, although this is subject to the powers of the Police to charge anyone to court.
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 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 are financial and economic in nature. The agency also strives to put an end to any act that breaks the penal and criminal codes.
