Lawyer says EFCC is operating outside its purview
NEWS DIGEST – Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, said on Thursday that the 1999 constitution does not give the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission the legal authority to investigate state government activities.
According to Agbakoba, the 1999 constitution recognizes only one police unit, the Nigeria Police Force, as the only security agency authorized to intervene in state affairs.
Because the EFCC was established by the Federal Government, and the Supreme Court upholds the autonomy of state governments, Agbakoba questioned whether the EFCC has the constitutional authority to prosecute state offenses.
“The Supreme Court in many of its decisions has held that federalism means two autonomous and independent governments and if that is correct, the EFCC does not have the right to go to the state and examine their accounts,” Agbakoba said.
Over the last few years, controversies have surrounded the EFCC’s constitutional powers. The Supreme Court reduced the Commission’s powers in 2020, and in 2021, the Kogi state government filed a suit seeking N35 billion in compensation for defamatory statements allegedly made by the EFCC.
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Despite the EFCC’s defense that it is a unit that only investigates financial crimes, Agbakoba believes it should not exist because it duplicates the scope of the Police Special Fraud Unit.
“I have asked myself in my research, is the EFCC a police force, is it an intelligence agency or is it a security agency? I have looked at the definition of what the Police Force might be. The police force is that which investigates and detects crimes, stops crimes and sometimes prosecutes. That is the core function of the police force.
“Then one of my prayers in court would be that EFCC ought not to exist in the first place because it is not a branch of the police and that the job done by the EFCC is the same one being done by the Police Special Fraud Unit.
“My other prayer would be whether the National Assembly can make laws for the federation and to what extent can the National Assembly which is an arm of the Federal Government make laws authorising a federal agency to exercise powers as if it were a state agency,” he said.
Agbakoba went on to say that whoever wins the presidential election on February 25th will be able to respond to calls for restructuring by correcting the flaws in the 1999 constitution.
“I now understand why some people are saying that the country must be restructured. Whoever wrote this Constitution designed it for Nigeria to fail because, on the one hand, it seems to authorise the EFCC to interfere in state’s affairs while on the other hand, it does not.”
