Given the pervasiveness of corruption in this clime, the task of getting rid of it cannot be considered a mean feat. This is apparent from the constant recourse to the catchphrase ‘corruption is fighting back’ each time anti-graft agencies are faced with institutional hiccups or strident criticisms on their methodology for prosecuting that war.
But this disposition could also turn out a great liability. It could turn out a subterfuge on the part of officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and related agencies to trample on the rights of the accused and seek to justify that travesty hiding under such nebulous suppositions. No doubt, the fight against corruption is at the heart of the survival of this country.
Yet, in this crucial battle, the rules must be very clear. The standards must be straight. Else unscrupulous officials begin to conduct themselves in ways capable of whittling down public confidence and support for the campaign. There are recent incidents that have raised the momentum for the re-examination of the roles officials of the EFCC play in the arrest; handling of suspects and disposition of issues before them.
First is the raging controversy over the death of a former Chief Protocol Officer at the Ministry of Defence, Desmond Nunugwo while being detained by the EFCC for allegedly defrauding a businessman. Accounts from his cell mates indicated that Nunugwo took ill and died shortly after his detention, as he could neither assess his high blood pressure and diabetes drugs due to inability to reach his wife because the investigating officer went away with his phone. This has resulted in claims and counter-claims between the family, the EFCC and the police. And until the riddle is resolved, it will remain as a sore point in the handling of detainees in the custody of the anti-graft body.
If this incident does not sufficiently illustrate the indiscretion in handling suspects by some officials, the purported arrest and detention of former governor of Imo State, Chief Achike Udenwa by the agency last week, should drive this point home more poignantly. In a widely publicized statement, the commission had said it arrested and detained the former governor and would have him arraigned in court soon.
It claimed this was precipitated by the inability of Udenwa to keep to the terms of the administrative bail granted him in the case of the N350 million campaign funds allegedly collected from the former Director of Finance of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization, Nenadi Usman. According to the commission, Udenwa reneged on the bail conditions which required him to report to the agency when he is needed to do so, thus necessitating the revocation of the bail.
But Udenwa issued a statement shortly after in which he strongly refuted the claims by the anti-graft agency. He gave a brief but lucid account of his dealings with the EFCC. He said, by a letter dated May, 13, he had applied for and obtained permission from the commission to travel abroad for medical check-up. Following this, he said the commission released his international passport which it had been holding to enable him make the travel. A new date of August 13 was agreed upon by both parties. But it later turned out the date fell on a Saturday, a non-working day for the agency and had to be further rescheduled by both parties for August 18.
On Tuesday August 16, he said while he was in Port Harcourt for the PDP convention billed for the next day, he got a call from his guarantor that he was required by the EFCC in Lagos the next day being Wednesday by 10am, which he obliged. But when he got there, he met another officer who immediately confronted him with the claim that he has deliberately and consistently refused to honor invitations and could no longer be reached.
Udenwa said the allegations were shocking to him as all his dealings with the agency should be in their file. Moreover, that was the fifth time he was honouring invitations by the EFCC in Lagos without any instance of failure on his side. Following this sequence of events and the curious haste with which the matter was released to the media even when he still departed their office the same day, Udenwa sees the action as a premeditated one. He said he was compelled to put matters straight because the claims could portray him as an unreliable person who may have other motives for allegedly not honouring the invitations in addition to putting his guarantor in jeopardy.
The issues raised by the former governor are as weighty as they are damn serious. They hinge on the credibility of the EFCC. The sum total of his case is that the claims bandied by the EFCC on which basis it issued a statement alleging he reneged on the terms of his bail by refusing to honour invitations and could no longer be reached are false. He went further to support that claim by chronicling all his interactions with the commission, the number of times he had kept scheduled appointments with no incident of failure.
Since Udenwa brought these issues to the court of public opinion, the EFCC has not disproved them. One is therefore, left with the inevitable conclusion that his account of his dealings with the EFCC represents the true position. He has been able to sustain his claim that the EFCC may be propelled by motives other than serious commitment to the war against corruption for its action especially given the sequence of events that followed that Tuesday.
And if one may ask, how did the officer he met that day arrive at the conclusion that he reneged on the terms of his bail and could no longer be reached? How come the commission granted him permission to travel abroad by releasing his international passport only for an official to turn round and bandy false allegations under which guise she claimed to have detained and would him arraigned in court? What of the indecent haste with which the story of his purported arrest and detention was leaked to the media even when the whole episode ended that same day? Was the media trial intended to embarrass and smear his image before the public or what? These are the issues to ponder.
We raise these posers because of the conflicting signals they throw up on the credibility of some of the actions of those charged with the execution of the war against corruption. Incidents like this reinforce suspicions that unscrupulous officials can go to lengths to subject the war to ends that are less than ennobling.
That is where the recent observation by President of the Nigerian Bar Association NBA, Augustine Alegeh that the “war against corruption must be fought within the ambit of the law and any attempt to fight corruption through other means is corruption”, cues in very appropriately. Before now, the Joint Action, Coalition of Civil Societies in Nigeria had feared that the war could be bastardized by the actions of corrupt officials within the EFCC. That is the real issue to watch.
The other strand of the argument Udenwa highlighted was that the case is about money for the presidential campaign election as it concerns all states of the federation and not Imo State alone. He said that as the PDP presidential campaign coordinator for Imo State, he and others involved have explained the details of the expenditure as it relates to the state and he has nothing to hide.
It is either the EFCC is satisfied with details of the deployment of the funds for the campaigns or it is not. Where it happens the money has been properly accounted for in the execution of the plethora of activities preceding that election, it is incumbent on the agency to let the matter go. But if on the contrary, it has evidence that the fund was not used for the purpose it was released, it is at liberty to take the appropriate line of action. That is the way out of the current game that miserably conveys the impression that there is more to the matter than the fight against corruption. But the EFCC owes a duty to explain how the presidential campaign fund for Imo State is remarkably different from those spent in other states that nothing is being heard of.
