Musa Ismail
If the job of the minister of justice and attorney-general of the Federation is to enforce the law and promote the rule of law, then Abubakar Malami has acquitted himself admirably by pushing the bill seeking to create an agency for the management of recovered property. Those who have closely monitored the anti-corruption fight of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration since 2015 would not be surprised about the bill. It is the logical climax of a struggle to bring more accountability and transparency to the war on corruption.
To be sure, Malami is not a fan of Ibrahim Magu, the suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The attorney-general had not hidden his misgivings about the way Magu prosecuted the anti-corruption war. He seemed to be of the view that Magu had mishandled the anti-graft policy of the Buhari administration in two critical ways. This came to light in two memos he reportedly wrote to the President, which were leaked to the press. The first memo was released during the tenure of Bukola Saraki as president of the Senate. EFCC had listed Saraki as a defendant in the robbery of four banks in Offa on April 4, 2018. The robbers had confessed that they were armed as political thugs. But when the case file was sent to the office of the attorney-general, Malami picked holes in the claims and supporting evidence of the EFCC, and asked the anti-graft agency to go and do a more diligent investigation before proceeding with the case. Malami also picked similar holes in the case against Mohammed Adoke and others in the Malabu oil deal case.
Then came the memo, which led to the setting up of the Presidential Investigative Panel chaired by Justice Ayo Salami. In the memo, Malami advanced reasons suspended EFCC acting chairman was not suitable for confirmation as chairman of EFCC, among which were allegations of diversion of seized assets and general lack of transparency and accountability in the management of recovered assets.
Reports coming from the Salami panel appeared to have backed Malami’s position that the EFCC, under Magu, had become like a poorly managed private enterprise where there’s no accountability. Magu had reportedly been at a loss to explain disparities in his record of seized property, and his accounts of recovered proceeds of corruption have been haphazard. Property had been sold without due diligence and monies unaccounted for.
The current legal situation allows any over-ambitious head of the EFCC become a Czar, an emperor who does as he likes without anyone to check his excesses. And this in itself is a condition conducive for corruption as all can now see from revelations coming from the Salami panel.
This is why the bill for the establishment of Crime Recovery and Management Agency, which has now been approved by the Federal Executive Council for transmission to the National Assembly, is a welcome development. The bill, when passed, would move the fight against corruption to a high level of transparency.
It would not be surprising if entrenched corrupt interests fight the bill at the NASS. They will use blackmail and intimidation to make sure it does not see the light of day. They have already started a civil society and media campaign to kill the bill but Nigerians must resist them. The NASS must resist any attempt by these powerful and affluent interests to trample on the country. They think the formation of the new agency will not allow them to manipulate the anti-corruption fight of President Buhari and divert resources to their personal pockets.
Explaining the importance of the bill, Malami had said: “The bill, when approved by NASS, would ensure the establishment of the agency, which would be saddled with the responsibility of managing all recovered assets across the country. What happened before now was that the proceeds of crime were scattered all over and mostly in the hands of different and multiple agencies of government, inclusive of the police, the DSS, EFCC, and ICPC.
“So, with that kind of arrangement, which is ad hoc, there is no agency of government that is saddled with the responsibility of data generation, an agency that can give you off-hand the number of landed assets, number of immovable assets, the amount in cash that are recovered by the Federal Government by way of interim forfeiture over weigh of a final forfeiture.
“So, it is indeed over time a kind of arrangement that is not uniform and consistent. So, what this law seeks to do is to move the fight against corruption to the next level; next level of transparency; next level of accountability and in essence have in place an agency of government that is exclusively responsible for anything that is proceeds of crime. So, a one-stop shop arrangement by which all assets that are recovered arising from crimes that are indeed vested in the Federal Government – you have a one-stop shop arrangement where you can have information.”
Malami had come up against some of these obstacles while Magu was in charge of EFCC. He had long identified the loopholes in EFCC’s operation as it affects the anti-corruption fight and his effort to fix it has met brick walls of vested interests. Sadly, Malami has been wrongly portrayed by these interests as the clog in the anti-corruption wheel, instead of the established interests he’s been fighting.
There is no doubt these interests are powerful, entrenched and can be overwhelming. It is a credit to Malami’s fighting spirit that he’s not derailed from his mission to give the anti-graft war more integrity by making it more accountable. True, it is this lack of an accountable and transparent management process that has made many Nigerians to question the honesty of the anti-graft messaging of the Buhari government.
Now that the country is close to getting an agency that will make the anti-corruption fight more meaningful and impactful, corrupt interests will surely rally for a war of attrition against NASS and Malami. But the legislators must put national interest above any consideration. That is the only way Nigeria can be a winner.
•Ismail writes from Kano
