Of EFCC and clampdown on Igbinedion

Igbinedion

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been embroiled in a crisis of credibility since the police top hierarchy sent its former chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, on a one-year course. Stephen Gbadamosi reports on the view that the commission’s hunt for former governor of Edo State, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, might be part of its efforts to assure Nigerians that the anti-curruption war is still on course.

When the cries against the directive from the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Mike Okiro, that the erstwhile chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, should proceed on a one-year course at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, climaxed with the consent of President Umaru Yar’Adua late last month, many Nigerians thought that the death knell might have been sounded on the anti-corruption war in the country.

Such fears were seen not to be unfounded, because the most celebrated of the targets of the EFCC had been, and are still, former governors who had been friends and former colleagues of the president in the Governors’ Forum. Indeed, the big fish in the EFCC net as at the time Ribadu was eased out was former Delta State governor, Chief James Ibori, reported to have committed a huge ache of resources to Yar’Adua’s campaign. Many believed that the zest with which Ribadu was handling the Ibori case informed the unceremonious means through which Ribadu was shoved out.

Prior to that time, Yar’Adua’s government had been accused of whittling down the war against corruption when the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, sought to place the anti-corruption agency under his ministry. The opprobrium, locally and internationally, that greeted the move was phenomenal. The aftermath was the study leave handed Ribadu which timing has been described as suspect. Moreover, the promises made by the police hierarchy that proceeding on the course would not hamper Ribadu’s handling of the EFCC had been proved empty by the recent proclamation of Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde as Ribadu’s replacement.

However, in the heat of the debate on whether or not Ribadu should go came the revelation that the EFCC had filed a proceeding against former governor of Edo State, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, and obtained a warrant of his arrest. Instructively, since the hullaballoo on Ribadu began, Igbinedion was the next former governor to be declared wanted by the EFCC. Unlike the wild jubilation that usually greeted such declaration on former governors especially, many Nigerians, with the exception of the people of Edo State, who had been lamenting the state of neglect the state was during the eight years Igbinedion held sway in the state, received the EFCC declaration with little enthusiasm.

Though, those who have visited the capital city, Benin, in recent time, argue that the state of infrastructure there does not justify the huge resources that accrued to the oil-rich state within the eight years that Igbinedion ruled, antagonists of Ribadu’s ousting are of the opinion that the timing of the hurriedly procured injunction was deliberately made to coincide with when the EFCC’s credibility rating was at the lowest ebb.

Igbinedion’s response to the report on Thursday, January 9, that he was being hunted by the Interpol supported the opinion of this school of thought.

Reacting to the allegation that he had been hiding in some less visible countries like the United Arab Emirates, Canada, South Africa and Egypt, the embattled former governor said in a letter by his lawyer, Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim (SAN), that he had at a time cut short a trip abroad to honour the commission’s invitation. He particularly expressed his unhappiness towards the media coverage accorded the allegations against him, promising to return to the country on Monday (today) to face the charges proffered by the commission.

But recent developments may have punctured the belief that Igbinedion was being chased to redeem the image of the EFCC. While Czar of the okada dynasty was making efforts to extricate himself from the allegation of embezzlement of state funds against him, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) directed the former Cross River State governor, Mr. Donald Duke, and his wife, Onari, to appear before it over allegations bordering on mismanagement of local government funds.

While it is the EFCC that has been mostly identified with cases involving former governors, the move by the ICPC over the Dukes cannot be totally interpreted within the claim that the Federal Government is seeking to redeem the image of its anti-corruption drive in the face of Ribadu’s sack. The petition leading to the Dukes travails was said to have emanated from former local government chairmen in his state who are in the best position to know if the local governments’ funds had been tampered with or not.

However, Larmorde, being the director of operations in the EFCC, could not be said to be oblivious of the cases top on the list of the commission when Ribadu was chairman. It would be fair to conclude that there is continuity in the commission’s operations after Ribadu’s exit. Whether Igbinedion’s planned arraignment is a means to give credibility to the anti-corruption war or not will be known to Nigerians certainly after Monday (today) when the former governor shows up before the EFCC. What is also certain is that the EFCC under Lamorde will surely not suffer any laxity against graft. Moreover, the ICPC is beginning to get involved in high profile corruption cases as evident in its campaign against Governor Duke.