In a recent interview on a YouTube channel, the Atlanta Discussion Channel, the former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Prof. Chidi Odinkalu knocks on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) lamenting it’s non performance.
Odinkalu described the anti-graft agency as being in an unfortunate situation where they overlook looters and go after crossdressers like Bobrisky.
He explained why the EFCC was established according to section 46 of the law that defines what economic and financial crimes are. He says “There is noway going after Bobrisky is within the ambit of what the EFCC is authorized or was created to do under the establishment act”.
He said that the EFCC was created during the President Olusegun Obasanjo rule when Nigeria was at the risk of being thrown out of the International payment system because we had a high level exposure to organized financial crime and needed to show that we had the will and bid to do something about it.
The human rights activist stated that in the past EFCC was the solution as no matter how highly placed people were they feared the agency but now the EFCC is the problem as it overlooks looters and pretends not to see them.
“The Kano state government is trying to prosecute the former Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and he stated that it is only the EFCC and the FGN that can prosecute him.
“That is why I say the EFCC are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Because in the past, no matter how ineffectual an EFCC procedure was, people were actually afraid. You would not have someone with Ganduje’s exposure saying is only EFCC that can prosecute him.
“Even as a party Chairman of a ruling party in the past would have been afraid of earning the attention of the EFCC. Today, Ganduje is saying is only the EFCC that can prosecute him because he knows the EFCC is absolutely captured and ineffectual. That is the only reason he can be saying that kind of thing. And that is a measure of how useless the institution has become.
“This is why we need to encourage them to turn a new leaf if it is within them to do so.
“But look at it, Kaduna State Governor says he cannot pay pension, he can’t pay salary because his predecessor has wiped the state, you look at the correlation between the debt profile of the state when the monies could have accrued and you look at the type of things the money could have been spent on and you can smell what transpired.
“But what is happening,? The EFCC doesn’t see that, it averts it’s case. Go to Cross Rivers state, the current governor says his predecessor totally bankrupted the state. What is the EFCC doing? It is doing absolutely nothing. You go from state to state, it is the same thing happening over and over and over.
“The EFCC is unwilling and unable and neglects to do anything to bring to account the people who have plaundered the country. Instead they are preoccupied with crossdressers” Odinkalu stated.
