IMPACT OF EFCC IN FIGHTING CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The present situation in Nigeria is face with multiple issues of corrupt practices which threaten the survival of her states and economy. The viral nature of this phenomenon is such that combating it is consistently proving abortive. Although this menace is present in varying degrees in different countries at different times. Countries in the Global North and the Global South are scourged by it differently. Nigeria is not an exception to this. The phenomenon consequently brings about economic backwardness, political instability, social insecurity, infrastructural decay, unaccountability, negation of the principle of law, etc. Efforts towards curbing it in Nigeria have suffered various setbacks. However since the emergence of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to manage it, some reasonable achievements have been recorded. Based on the primary data this study examined the EFCC and the challenges of managing corruption in Nigeria. Bearing in mind that corruption as a complex phenomenon manifests in virtually every known social institution and has transitional as well as global web of connectivity, an integrative theoretical approach was used in this explanation. Findings reveal that the Commission is confronted with myriad of challenges which include: meddling in its activities by the power elites; unwholesome judicial process; weak anti-graft laws; job insecurity for its Chairperson etc.

                                          CHAPTER ONE

                                        INTRODUCTION

• BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The issue of embezzlement and fraudulent activities, mismanagement, economic corruption, lack of accountability and transparency continues to elude a country like Nigeria ever since her independence. It’s mitigating the entire population both at the grass roots up to the political levels. Even the mentally deterred people in the country could recognize the havoc caused by corruption. Evidence abound that the rate of corruption especially financial crimes like advanced fee fraud fondly known as 419 and money laundering committed in Nigeria is alarming. Nigerian’s are treated with suspicion in all business dealings within and outside the country, making majority of honest Nigerians suffer the result. In regards to this, hassan (2004), opined that the federal government should try to implement an intensive programme of eradicating the menace of corruption in the country. This is because, it has the political will to achieve this objective. The most relevant effort is the creation of EFCC. The EFCC was established by an act of parliament on December 13th 2002 by the federal government they began full operation in 2003. It has support from the presidency, the legislature, security and law enforcement agencies in Nigeria. The commission is primarily charged with the responsibility of eradicating all the economic and financial crimes such as: advanced fee fraud, money laundering, counterfeits, future market fraud, fraudulent encashment of negotiable instrument, computer credit card fraud, contracts scam, and embezzlement of public funds and illegal acquisition of company shares which do not exist to investors. According to ajaero (2004), our politicians are also not exempted in this financial crime. In Nigeria today, people see politics as a short cut to becoming a millionaire. Those voted into power use it as an opportunity of looting the public funds, diverting them to their personal account instead of providing the people with dividends of democracy. According to bajo (2004), corruption has continued to be a destructive element in the government of Nigeria and the perception of the country in the community of nations. It has resulted to a lot of problem, thus: loss of government, brain drain, electoral malpractices and absence of law and orders.

Since its inception, EFCC has taken the bull by the horns working tenaciously to achieving her organizational mission. Under the current leadership, it vigorously pursues its mandate of investigating cases earlier highlighted; the Commission has made concerted efforts in identifying, tracing and freezing, confiscating, or seizing proceeds derived from such illicit activities. EFCC, from inception, has also played host to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), vested with the responsibility of collecting suspicious transactions reports (STRs) from financial and designated non-financial institutions, analyzing and disseminating them to all relevant government agencies and other FIUs all over the world. So far, the Commission has been able to and still recording successes in several areas of its mandate. Among others, it has recorded several convictions on corruption, money laundering, oil pipeline vandalism and related offences. Assets and money worth over $11 billion have been recovered from corrupt officials and their cohorts. The Commission is tenacious with over 65 high profile cases at advanced stages of prosecution in several courts in Nigeria and over 1500 other cases in court and secured over 600 convictions.

Variety of scholars opined that, EFCC’s performance has not addressed the problems for which it was founded. Thus, the researcher attribute this poor performance of the EFCC to certain environmental conditions which influence their performance in terms of accomplishing its statutory mandate in reducing the rate of political corruption in Nigeria. Such environmental conditions that impede EFCC’s performance include Dual legitimacy of criminality and the irony or paradox of fighting corruption by corrupt individuals. It is assumed that one does not make laws against his own will. Unless these environmental conditions change, EFCC performance will not change from what it is at present.

In the same vein, Ifesinachi (2003:27), captured these debilitating effects of corruption in terms of the argument on the prevalent social values, corruption appears to have overthrown and defined commonsense and logic both in the public and private realm in some African States like Nigeria. It is in recognition and the effort to stem these ugly trends that the Obasanjo’s administration had responded by lunching a number of campaigns and strategies against corruption. Meanwhile, despite the laudable measure and strategies by the Obasanjo’s administration to curb corruption, the concerns of various eminent citizens and scholars in the country and outside is that the previous regime left a horrendous stinking legacy of covering up for current and potential looters of Nigerian treasury since it is those who set up the regulatory institutions are still the same people that loot the public treasury. The implication of this deadly scenario is that the regulatory institutions will be ineffective and weak. These facts have necessitated the background to the emergence of this research, the researcher shall try to accomplish using the study of one of the mostly acclaimed anticorruption institutions, the Economic and financial crime commission (EFCC), examining how far their activities have hindered or helped to curb the incidence of corruption in Nigeria.

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Since independence Nigeria has witnessed one kind of corruption or the other, especially financial misconduct at local, state and federal government levels. However, the magnitude, the nature at which corruption is now being committed to every meaningful citizen and foreigners are alike. The worst scenario of it is that every successive governments have in many ways claimed to fight corruption but each has always come out worse than the previous state of matter in corruption rating. Many Nigerians have being enriching themselves through crooked ways especially advanced fee fraud and money laundering. Top government officials loot the public funds and divert them into their private account, while the masses suffer in abject poverty and die of starvation. While we are blessed with enough national and human resources that can easily make a nation to be great. This result shows why Nigeria is the fifth highest largest producer of petroleum and still rated as one of the thirtieth poorest and third most corrupt country in the world through the operation of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. In order to curb the menace cause by political corruption in Nigeria, former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2002, instituted the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), after other attempts to stem corruption had been proven abortive. Abumere, quoted in Ezeani and Elekwa (2006:339), recollected that President Obasanjo had declared in his inaugural speech on May 29, 1999 that “corruption, the greatest bane of our society today will be tackled head on at all levels and there will be no sacred cows; nobody, no matter who and where, will be allowed to get away with the perpetuation of corruption”. Meanwhile in today’s experience, the reverse seemed to be the case. Observation proves that corrupt public personnel are usually convicted when they have a contradicting interest with the power that be. These problems are the central concern of this emergence study, and can be specifically stated in the form of those research questions below: 1. has the EFCC accomplished its statutory mandate in terms of reducing the rate of political corruption in Nigeria. 2. Does the dual legitimacy of criminality influence the performance of EFCC in fighting political corruption in Nigeria?

• OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main concern of this research is to assess the achievement of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in their fight against corruption in Nigeria. Therefore, the specific objective of this study includes the following:

1. To examine if the EFCC has accomplished its statutory mandate by reducing the rate of political corruption in Nigeria.
2. To assess how the dual legitimacy of criminality has influenced the performance of the EFCC in Nigeria.

• To examine the contributions of EFCC in enhancing financial accountability and transparency.

1. To carry out a comprehensive analysis on the contributions of EFCC in detecting and controlling fraud in Nigeria.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. Does the dual legitimacy of criminality influence the performance of EFCC in fighting political corruption in Nigeria?
2. Has the EFCC accomplished its statutory mandate in terms of reducing the rate of political corruption in Nigeria?

3. What are the contributions of EFCC in detecting and controlling fraud in Nigeria?
4. What are the contribution of EFCC in enhancing financial accountability and transparency?
5. What are the achievements and successes of the commission?
6. How effective EFCC contributions benefited Nigeria public and private sector?
7. What are the responsibilities and functions of EFCC?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The value of the study will at first, provide Nigerians with the fundamental reliability and understanding of the unabated nature of political corruption in Nigeria, thereby keeping them disposed to contribute their quotas towards its reduction. Government with this research work will be witty and aware of the extent the activities of EFCC has contributed in administration and controlling of fraud in Nigeria. It will also be of great significant in examining the area of weakness and how best to improve them for effective regulation of fraud. To the academic, the research work will help them formulate more theories and strategies that will enhance the effectiveness of EFCC in ensuring financial accountability and transparency. It will also contribute to the enrichment of literature on EFCC and serve as a body of reserved knowledge to be referred to by researchers. Finally, this study when implemented will help to restore confidence in our government as well as the economy. This is because the cost of government will be reduced and funds hitherto diverted for private use will be made available for our infrastructural development which in turn will create an enabling environment for economic growth in the different sectors of government.

1.6 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study centers on the activities of EFCC in Nigeria and how these can help improve financial accountability and transparency. It embraces their operations both in the public and private sectors with the aim of improving financial efficiency and reducing corruption. LIMITATIONS: This research work suffered many setbacks due to a lot of reasons. One of such is the inaccessibility of information from the office of EFCC. Presently, they are security conscious and unwilling to disclose information and plans available some write ups and journals which would have been helpful for this research work. Ideally, the work should have involved more states but due to some inherent constraint such as time and money but effort would be made to at least touch a great number of states to have a balance view of this research.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

EFCC: This is an acronym for Economic and Financial crimes commission. It is a commission created by an act of the National Assembly in 2002 and was amended in 2004. It is charged with the responsibility of investigating and enforcement of all laws against economic and financial crimes.

FRAUD: The crime of deceiving somebody in order to collect money or goods illegally. It also means a person who pretends to have qualities and abilities, skills etc. that he or she does not really have to deceive others. It is an acronym for Nigeria Financial intelligent unit. It is an autonomous central national agency, domiciled within EFCC with responsibility of receiving and analyzing financial information.

INVESTIGATION: This means a special kind of examination of accounts or records carried on by an investigator with the predefined purpose according to the necessity of the situation (Chike Nwoha 2003:33).

Nigeria: Nigeria, is a federal republic in West Africa, bordering Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja is located. Nigeria is officially a democratic secular country.

EFCC: The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is a Nigerian law enforcement agency that investigates financial crimes such as advance fee fraud (419 fraud) and money laundering. The EFCC was established in 2003, partially in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), which named Nigeria as one of 23 countries non-cooperative in the international community’s efforts to fight money laundering.^[1] The agency has its head office in Abuja.

1.8 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION (EFCC)

The historical background to the existence of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission derives from the recognition from the late 1980’s of the need to create a special interventionist agency to investigate economic and financial crimes. At that time, the menace of Advance fee Fraud, with its negative impact on Nigeria had been recognised. At the same time, it was recognised that the sophistication of economic crimes were such that there might be the need for a special Commission to handle its investigation and prosecution as opposed to the regular law enforcement agencies. By 2002, Nigeria found its way in the Financial Action Task Force’s list of Non-Cooperative Countries and one of the conditions for being taken off that list was compliance with Recommendation 26 of the FATF’s then 49 recommendations, which required the creation of a Financial Intelligence Unit. Consequently, the EFCC was created in 2002 and Nigeria’s Financial intelligence Unit domiciled therewith. The Statute creating the EFCC was first enacted in 2002 and subsequently re-enacted in 2004. The EFCC started operations in 2003.

The Statute creating the EFCC vested it with the mandate to:

1. Investigate and prosecute economic and Financial Crimes. Section 47 of the enabling acts sets out financial crimes to cover several issues such as bank frauds, tax evasion, capital market fraud, futures market frauds, etc.
2. Be the national coordinator for anti-money laundering.
3. Be the designated Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit.
4. Implement the provisions of the Advance Fee Fraud Act, Failed Banks Decree, Money Laundering Act and the Banks and other Financial Institutions Decree.

From a practical point of view, the EFCC sees its mandate as the provision of financial security for the Nigerian economy. It implements the mandate through tackling those menaces such as official corruption, tax evasion, bank fraud, Advance fee fraud, illegal bunkering and several other shades of economic crimes that can distort key economic indices and inhibit growth. It also seeks to create a level playing field for all stakeholders within the Economy.

• ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), statement of problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance or the study, research methodology, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlight the theoretical framework on which the study is based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study.

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