The level of corruption within the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) itself is simply too high, too deeply embedded and too widespread among the officers. The problem cannot be solved by simply hoping that the officers of the EFCC would become of such moral rectitude to avoid or resist the abundant opportunities and incentives for corrupt enrichment. Fighting corruption is not just a matter of morality or personal ethics. It ought to be about eliminating those opportunities and incentives. While ethics and morality might help at individual levels, historical and scientific evidence tends to show that they cannot be relied upon at institutional or organizational levels. Indeed, one would postulate that part of the problems of the EFCC today is excessive reliance on religious morality as a guide, instead of reliance on well tested legal and operation standards that ought to govern the work of a modern law enforcement institution.
At present, you have at play in the EFCC the Islamic religious morality that urges a detainee to accept his arrest and detention and any attendant suffering as Allah’s plan for him. Then you have also, but to a lesser degree, the Christian religious morality, which urges the same detainees to repent and rededicate themselves to God. The officers of the law actually preach these beliefs. Hence, the only reading materials guaranteed to be allowed in the EFCC cells are the Koran and the Bible. A copy of the Constitution would not be allowed. However, morality cannot be the panacea for corruption. Indeed, it is dangerous to run any institution on the basis of morality. As A. V. Dicey put it in the political-cum-philosophical context of fighting dictatorship and entrenching the rule of law, we can say that to fight corruption within the EFCC, and even the police force itself, we need to eliminate or significantly reduce arbitrariness and the scope of discretion at the disposal of the officers.
When Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde took over as the Acting Chairman of the EFCC in November of 2011, he publicly admitted that there was corruption within the EFCC and that he was going to fight it. Almost every informed person doubted him. The doubt was mostly based on the belief that Lamorde did not seem to understand that the way to fight corruption within the organization is not by entrenching more morality or, to a similar vain, by using lie-detector machines as he said he would. He did not seem prepared to do the simple things that he needed to do to drastically reduce the problem. Such simple things would have been to seek to set forth verifiable standards to govern the actions of the EFCC officials, including himself, at every level. In so far as an arrest could be affected in more than ten different ways (ranging from a simple civilized process of taking a person to various brutal and degrading methods used by the EFCC officials) there will be no progress. In so far as it is up to an officer to determine without any guide the terms of administrative bails, and when such terms have been met, there will be no progress.
If Lamorde could prepare comprehensive, written and transparent guidelines, spelling out what steps an officer should take in each operational scenario, that would drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the opportunity to seek bribe in exchange for discretion. What the management of EFCC has to understand is that bribe is often a trade on discretion. An officer who has too wide a discretion may be tempted to exchange his discretionary choices for cash. The best way is to narrow and clarify such discretion to the most precise extent possible, and demand a written rationalization for each discretionary decision made. The duty to rationalize an act goes a long way to preempt unlawful acts.
Before I go any further, I shall narrate four specific examples of abuse of discretion involving Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde himself. In all the cases, he did not take money for his decision, but he simply failed to follow any known guidelines or standards in his decisions, which made his decisions vulnerable to accusations of arbitrariness, and even corruption. In the first example: In April of 2011, a businessman from Kogi State was brought into the EFCC detention cell in Abuja on a Thursday, accused of being involved in some fraud. The next day, a Friday, his senior brother (a former member of the House of Representatives) came to the EFCC to ask questions about his brother’s detention. He met Lamorde while Lamorde was on his way to the mosque. The man being a good Muslim, like Lamorde, was invited by Lamorde to join him in prayers in the mosque. During the course of their visit to the mosque, the two men talked and when they came back to the EFCC office, Lamorde ordered that the businessman be released. The man was immediately taken out of the cell to speak with his brother. He was released there and then. Shortly afterwards, he came back to the cell to pick his things. Before he left the cell, he explained to me how his release was secured.
In the second example, one former Senator from one of the Northern States claimed that some people had stolen a piece of land he had in Lagos. He came to the land and met some laborers working there, apparently on the construction of a house. He called the DPO nearest to the area. Shortly after the call, policemen came and arrested those laborers and took them to the Maroko Police Station. The man that sent the laborers to work on the land sent his lawyer, Iheanyi Eme, Esquire, a lawyer of twenty-four-year standing in the bar, to go and secure the release of the laborers from the police cell. When Mr. Eme arrived at the police station to get the laborers freed, the DPO called the Senator to inform him that a lawyer was at his station seeking to get the boys out. The Senator had to rush to ensure that none of the laborers would be released from custody. When he got there, he accused Mr. Eme of being the leader of the gang that stole his land. Further, the Senator placed a call to Lamorde, to the hearing of everybody there, and requested Lamorde to send operatives of the EFCC to arrest the lawyer who stole his land. In Mr. Eme’s presence, the Senator was discussing with Lamorde how to arrest Mr. Eme. Truly, in few minutes, a team of EFCC operatives arrived to arrest Mr. Eme from the police station. It was a Sunday. In fact, the DPO refused to let Eme leave until the EFCC operatives came and took him away and they detained him in the EFCC cell for nearly a week without ever charging him to court. During Eme’s several meetings with the EFCC operatives while in custody, they would tell him they were ready to release him, but that they did not want to displease the Senator. (Eme is now filing a suit against the EFCC and Lamorde and the so-called Senator to enforce his fundamental rights. So, Lamorde cannot deny this matter. And note that this happened not three years ago, but after Lamorde was appointed to take over from Mrs. Farida Waziri).
Third example: A man was arrested and detained by the EFCC in October of 2011. EFCC officers involved in his case did everything to delay taking him to court. In mid December of 2011, they finally charged him to court but the date for arraignment was to be January 27, 2012, which meant that this man would be in detention for three months before he would ever be presented before a judge. His family managed to get to Lamorde. Lamorde agreed to help the man. What did he do? He called the prosecuting counsel, an EFCC staff, and instructed him to make sure that the man was brought to court sooner. Based on Lamorde’s call, the EFCC lawyer went to court and brought the date of arraignment forward and a judge agreed to be available on December 27, 2011 to take the arraignment of the man. Yet, the law required that a person be arraigned within 48 hours, and in any case, EFCC should have arraigned him at the earliest date possible, which apparently was one whole month before the date they chose. Lamorde’s intervention was inappropriate and should have been unnecessary. Lamorde was not worried that the staff of the EFCC could choose to deprive a person of liberty for 3 months by pushing as further off as possible the date of his arraignment.
The fourth example: In the case of a man known as Gboyega, the Federal High Court in Abuja issued an order for him to be released on Friday, December 23, 2011. The EFCC officials refused to obey the Court order. They gave various excuses. They claimed the officers in charge were not on duty. They claimed that the order was not clear, even though their lawyer was in court when the order was issued and could have asked the judge to explain the order if he did not understand it. They claimed it was too late in the day and that staff had gone on Christmas holiday. They claimed they needed to get a written advisory from their own legal department. It was obvious that the EFCC officials were hell-bent on keeping this man in detention through the Christmas. The man’s lawyers had to contact Lamorde personally. They begged him. They cajoled him. They threatened him. Only then, by 10:00pm on that day, did Lamorde call the EFCC officers in charge and told them to release the man. In other words, he called to give them permission to obey the order of a court of law. What an act of generosity! The above four examples demonstrate scenarios that exemplify corruption and abuse of discretion. It is immaterial that Lamorde did not ask for money in any of the four examples mentioned here. The fact that situations like these could exist means that corruption opportunities exist abundantly in EFCC. Those should be the real target of reforms. Unless, Lamorde puts in place guidelines to prevent this kind of situations, he cannot eliminate corruption in EFCC. It is so naïve for him to prefer to enjoy the power of being personally contacted to get basic things going, rather than setting forth rules and procedures that must be followed without need for his personal interventions. Late last year, upon the elevation of Lamorde to the position of the Acting Chairman, I wrote to Mr.President through Ruben Abati that Lamorde was not fit for the job. People might have thought that I had personal grudge against the man. But that would not be correct. He might be a good man in the generic sense of that word. I was concerned about his ability to understand the challenges both the EFCC and the country face in the area of building a robust institution (not some personality cults) to fight corruption in Nigeria. I am concerned about Lamorde’s knowledge and preparedness to apply the laws and procedures required for ultimate (not the smokescreens) success in the area of anti-corruption reform. Looking at his experience within the EFCC itself, one must come to the conclusion that Lamorde could not be the right person. People, within and outside the EFCC, warned me that antagonizing Lamorde could make things very difficult for me in view of my ongoing cases in future. But as I advised my friends, whatever happens, my thoughts and conscience must remain beyond the reach of the EFCC and the Nigerian Government. I could not suppress my conscience or intellectual independence in order to assuage anybody’s feelings, especially where the course of justice dictated otherwise. I must continue to demand that Lamorde carry out the internal cleansing he promised. Nigerians must seek to hold him accountable to his promise. He must show concrete demonstrable evidence of actions taken to cleanse the EFCC of internal corruption.

By: Daniel Aremu
Nigeria.Youths.Democracy.coalition
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