EFCC, Yar’adua and the real due process
It is interesting how much majority of the nation’s press celebrated what the
president recently did to the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). On August 7th 2007, the pint-sized Punch newspapers on its front page declared: “EFCC, ICPC now take order from the Attorney-General; the unobtrusive and taciturn Daily Trust announced: “Yar’adua cuts EFCC’s power; while the boisterous Daily Sun in its element as usual and having a stone to grind with EFCC (for putting Orji Kalu, its owner in the cooler) screamed with glee: “Cut to size”, with the picture of a somber-looking Nuhu Ribadu splashed on its front page. Aside from the press, it will be interesting to see who else, in the next few days, will roll out the drums over what President Umar Yar’adua had caused to happen to the treasury looters’ sniff dog - the EFCC. Certainly, many who have things to hide will be congratulating themselves on the turn of event already. And why? The EFCC has been sent to the abattoir of many of the finest ideas in this nation – the bureaucracy. For that is what has simply happened to both the EFCC and the ICPC, all the excuses as regard due
process not withstanding.
It is worth noting the extent to which the president’s Special Adviser on Communications, Mr Olusegun Adeniyi went to explain what his boss had in mind when he officially placed the financial crime busters under the supervisory role of the Ministry of Justice. Mr President means well My Adeniyi has told reporters. Mr President did not say any treasury looter should be shielded from justice, he added. And that is not all. The presidents is only enforcing the law that vested the Attorney-General with power to prosecute and that, in any case, Yar’adua, by his latest directive, only granted the request of the Attorney-General who had made a case to be allowed to exercise his Constitutionally allotted powers by bringing EFCC and such other organizations under his wings. The President however, Mr Adeniyi said, would never condone, now or in the future, acts that amount to abuse of office and that anyone whose hands are found to be in a pot of soup illegally will not be shielded from the long arm of the law. He further explained that if the president did not take this step, due process would be sacrificed and the entire reason for creating bodies such as the EFCC may not yield the desired results in the long run.
Now these are gratifying words. In fact, they are laudable excuses. Again, worth noting is the extent the Special Adviser went to give details of how the approval to hide the EFCC in a corner office in a ministry came to be given by Mr President. It can only be assumed that the president realizes the bigger implications.
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