A lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Fred Agbaje, has slammed anti-graft agencies – the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission – as failures, asking for a merger of the agencies with the Nigeria Police Force.
Agbaje told Saturday PUNCH in a telephone interview on Friday that the agencies have failed in the fight against corruption in the country.
Recently, there have been calls that the two agencies should be merged, but Agbaje said that both agencies should rather be scrapped.
He said, "Of what benefit is the EFCC and ICPC to Nigerians in the fight against corruption that is increasing in bounds these days? "Merge the two organisations with the police and let them come under the Police Special Fraud Unit to be headed by a Police Commissioner and give the police the wherewithal to work and see whether the police will not perform. In other words, give the budget of the two organisations after the merger to the police and see police wonders.
"EFCC and ICPC have derailed since from their statutory responsibilities to being an instrument of political witch-hunting by the government.
"Section 4 of the Police Act gives them the responsibility to detain, investigate and prosecute criminal cases; so, the two organisations are just a proliferation of police work."
Agbaje blamed the lawyers working for the anti-graft agencies for bungling corruption cases, especially those that concern high profile persons.
He described such lawyers as undeserving of the money they are paid, saying such money ought to be refunded.
He said, "Some senior lawyers were castigated for handling corruption cases shoddily last year; what happened to those lawyers? Such lawyers should be able to refund such money, but there is no code to regulate this, so anything goes.
"We as lawyers need to ask ourselves if we have done enough to ensure justice, particularly lawyers handling cases for the EFCC, what have they done to justify their pay?"
On some celebrated corruption cases that have suddenly died down, Agbaje blamed the government and the police for insincerity, adding that Section 15 of the Nigerian constitution gives the country the obligation to fight corruption.
The lawyer identified a few cases including the $620,000 bribery allegation levelled against a member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan, by a businessman, Femi Otedola, and another case, which involved the former Speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole.
The Punch