The Present Culture of EFCC in Nigeria Requires a Swift Ethical Overhaul Moving Forward – By Dr. John E. Oshodi

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, EFCC Politics, John Egbeazien Oshodi, NNP Columnists Monday, April 13th, 2015

Dr. John E. Oshodi | NNP | April 13, 2015 – In the coming months and years, Nigerians are looking forward to a government that will take steps to overhaul one of the nation’s police or law enforcement organizations, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC).

EFCC is one of those establishments hurriedly pieced together with a legal mandate to fight financial and economic crimes, even though we have had for more than 100 years a law enforcement body called the Nigerian Police Force. The EFCC has made some progress in preventing, investigating, and successfully prosecuting financial-related crimes but this was more noticeable three years or more ago. The EFCC, apart from its responsibility to work on matters of money laundering, fraud, recovery of major bank-related debts, is also documented to fight terrorism, an area where the Department of State Security Service, our domestic intelligence agency, is supposed to show prominence.

Given these definitional lay outs of the EFCC’s responsibilities, what could make EFCC’s leadership and its present operators so distracted that it would openly and shamelessly work from the approach of systemic unethical practice as we all witnessed recently?

Let’s take the Edo State case, in which criminal suspects invaded the housing quarters of State legislators, causing damage to properties as in armed burglary and causing damage to multiple vehicles as in property damage, in addition to reports of physical injuries of some legislators as in battery and assault.

These occurrences were happening at about the middle and end of 2014, at a time when political tension between members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were at their worst, in the State legislature especially.

Clearly, these are cases of domestic offenses in the State of Edo, and the Edo State police command rightly should handle these sorts of cases.

Instead, the EFCC suddenly appeared in a politically and non-financial matter with drummed up charges of alleged forgery against the Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Uyi Igbe, the majority Leader, Philip Shaibu and the Chief Whip, Folly Ogedegbe, all of whom were part of the opposing party to President Goodluck Jonathan. These men were accused of forging another State legislator’s signature that was used to perfect an impeachment of another senior legislator.

The arrested legislators, including some who were wounded in their residential quarters, were arrested and taken all the way to Abuja– not even to EFCC’s closest office in Enugu State. The arrested lawmakers, including the injured ones, were reportedly denied adequate access to medical help facilities, especially Shaibu, whose doctor had flown all the way to Abuja in the North, the federal headquarters of EFCC, to treat him but was denied access. Here are the troubling questions. Why would the EFCC, who is charged to combat money-related offences, prey on three lawmakers of an oppositional party to the ruling party? What money and terrorist-related crimes did these lawmakers commit that would cause the EFCC to detain them to the extent that one of the arrestees, under inhumane conditions in custody, reportedly collapsed?

How will the EFCC, who is not responsible for crimes like the alleged forgery of a signature, explain to the children of today why it sidetracked the local police whose duty it is to investigate offences of handwriting? How is the EFCC mandated to investigate impeachment matters which is not only a political matter but an internal affair of the Edo State Legislature? How does the EFCC explain to potential and new recruits into EFCC academy that matters of legislature as in political signatures and impeachment stand out as financial crimes?

The politicking of policing in Nigeria as seen in the case of the EFCC must stop; to do this, steps to overhaul and overcome the bad reputation of agencies like the EFCC must commence now as we move forward. In recent years in Nigeria, a profession like policing continues to face ethical challenges in its day-to-day work which distracts its attention from its real mandated assignments.

Here we see a law enforcement agency lacking true accountability to its true duties, engaged in human rights violations and rapidly deteriorating as a profession. As we move forward with a new and progressive Nigeria, is this not the time for the government to do more than just start talking about reform, but instead fix the system?

It is time for our law enforcement agencies to understand they don’t have to deliver political outcomes for any government, as administrations do change from time to time through a system of electoral democracy. Instead of serving as a political ball for politicians, an agency of law enforcement should serve as a politically neutral body, no matter the consequences that result from taking a position of trust and honesty.

We should remember that the EFCC was born rapidly during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s post-military administration in 2004. With the unusual name of “Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,” it calls for some questioning and refurbishing of itself.

As a designation, the entire name is too broad–an all-over-the place name. It is a label that has outlived its transitional use and historical time.

As we work on its ethical well-being, let us find a more appropriate name for it that is conducive to its supposed operational functions, less vague or ambiguous, a name that portrays instant impact and specificity of what the agency stands for legally. Let’s call it the “Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation” (FBCI or even FBC) or the “Federal Force for Investigation (FFI). Or any other name other than what it is now, as long as it aligns well with its operational, practical and strategic functions.

In the same vein, there should be a new leadership label like “Chief Director” or “Executive Director” in the place of the more commercially, corporately or politically-sounding label of the word “Chairman”.

In the coming months and years, it is hoped that the principles of ethical conduct in policing and organizational integrity will once again become institutionalized aspects of all police agencies in Nigeria for the sake of equal justice and fairness.

Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi is a Forensic/Clinical Psychologist, a Consultant in National Psychology, and a former Secretary-General of the Nigeria Psychological Association. [email protected]wp_posts