EFCC Blasts Newly Elected NBA President

Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud,newly-elected President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA has been blasted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for his suggestion that the commission’s powers be limited to investigation.

Spokesman of the EFCC Wilson Uwujaren described Mahmoud’s remarks during his inauguration on Friday, as self-serving and meant to protect a cabal of untouchables, Vanguard reports.

“The EFCC appreciates the NBA’s acknowledgement of the Commission’s strategic place in the fight against corruption in Nigeria and the modest achievements that it has recorded so far. It also welcomes the suggestion for reform,” the statement read.

“Nevertheless, the Commission views with concern, the call by the NBA president that the EFCC be stripped of its prosecutorial powers. According to him, ‘We need to define its mandate more narrowly and more clearly… I strongly recommend that the EFCC be limited to investigation… while prosecution should be handled by an independent resource prosecution agency.’

“The Commission’s discomfort over this seemingly innocuous proposition, stems from the fact that Mahmoud was silent on the reason for his position. More importantly, the Commission cannot comprehend how the redefinition of EFCC’s mandate in narrow terms, ultimately whittling it down, fits into the clamour by Nigerians and the vision of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for a vibrant and courageous anti-corruption agency.

“Instead, Mahmoud’s suggestions appears perfectly in sync with a cleverly disguised campaign by powerful forces that are uncomfortable with the reinvigorated anti-graft campaign of the EFCC and are hell-bent on emasculating the agency by stripping it of powers to prosecute with the lame excuse that an agency that investigates cannot also prosecute.

“The question Nigerians must ask the Mahmoud-led NBA is, what is wrong with EFCC prosecution? Mahmoud is in a position to answer this question. He was the Attorney General of the Federation’s counsel in the trial of former Delta State governor, James Ibori at the Federal High Court, Asaba, a case which EFCC lost in questionable circumstances. But the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London.

“It is too much of a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated few months after the Commission, in unprecedented fashion arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption.”

While claiming to have recorded more convictions than all states and federal ministries of justice combined, the commission promised to rid the bar of corrupt and unfit lawyers.

“The NBA under my watch will fight judicial corruption. We shall make the legal profession unattractive for corrupt lawyers…A Bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues and vultures cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice.”