Missing Funds: EFCC has no Power to Investigate Kogi Govt – Agbakoba

Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), has criticised the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over what he described as an unwarranted media trial of the Kogi State government as regards the fresh case against a nephew of Governor Yahaya Bello.

The senior lawyer also dismissed the EFCC’s attempt to resurrect, through the backdoor, the previous N20 billion bail-out controversy.

Making his position known at a press conference on “The Rule of Law in Nigeria Today,” held in Lagos on Sunday, Agbakoba noted that the anti-corruption agency was turning itself into a one-man Robin Hood riot gang, which must not be allowed.

According to him, how a state spends it’s money should not be the business of the EFCC but that of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

“The EFCC for example plays a very strong role in the anti-corruption strategy of Nigeria but they are also one of the institutions most guilty of breaking the rule of law,” he said.

This was just as Agbakoba quickly recalled that the Supreme Court recently said in one of it’s judgments that the EFCC could not be a jack of all trades and should, therefore, concentrate on what the law empowers them to do under Section 46 of their Act.

“Like the current trending case where the EFCC arrested some people in Kogi State on allegations of money laundering, I believe that case should not be the business of the EFCC at all. Is it their business how Kogi spends their money? Even if it is their business, is it their lawful business to make that enquiry?

“The Supreme Court has recently said in one of its judgments that the EFCC cannot be a jack of all trades and that they should concentrate on what the law empowers them to do under Section 46 of their Act.

“It is not the duty of the EFCC to be chasing the Kogi State government and threatening to storm the State House to seize documents or harass the Accountant-General of the state.

“What the EFCC is currently doing is turning itself into a one-man Robin Hood riot gang. That must not be allowed and that is the impunity that I refer to.

“My advice to the EFCC is that whatever they want to do, they should remember that there is a law that created them and they must also remember that Section 46 of the EFCC Act had stated and narrowed down their functions and in a case where they want to expand their functions, they must go to the National Assembly to do so.

“If I were the lawyer to the Kogi State government, what I would do is to go to court and tell the court that as a result of the Supreme Court judgment, the EFCC does not have the power to demand that we should provide documents or give them our accounting books.

“If we have lost money, we are the ones to complain and if we are not complaining or we are complicit in any fraud, then the appropriate agency to handle it is the ICPC or the state House of Assembly,” he said.