The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) has made available, the details of the
high profile cases it handled to the Office of the
Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister
of Justice.
As reported by Punch, a recent list sent to the
AGF’s office, comprised 103 high-profile cases.
Those on the list, it was learnt, include top-
ranking judicial officers, including a justice of the
Supreme Court, a judge of the Federal High
Court, and a sacked justice of the Court of
Appeal.
Buhari’s cabinet, and others serving their terms
in the Senate.
Other politically-exposed persons named in the
list are some former ministers, senators and
some persons being investigated for the $2.1
billion arms purchase scam.
The report says no names were made public in
order not to compromise investigation, but that
investigations were said to have been completed
in majority of the cases while investigation was
stalled in some of them due to “disappearance”
of the suspects from Nigeria.
“Some of the cases are still at intelligence-
gathering stage, while some are at investigation
stage.
“There are some that are the stage of charges
being drafted while some are already ongoing in
court but foot-dragging,” Punch quotes an
unnamed EFCC source.
The Special Assistant to the President on
Prosecutions and Chairman of the newly-
constituted Recovery of Public Property Panel,
Chief Okoi Obono-Obla confirmed that the EFCC
had now yielded to the AGF’s request and that
the AGF’s office had received the list from the
EFCC but, refused to give details.
Obono-Obla, who works under the AGF, said the
ICPC would send its list to the AGF when the
new chairman of the commission is inaugurated.
“They are cooperating. They have sent the
details of the cases we requested to us,” the
presidential aide said.
When asked whether the AGF will by its action
take over the prosecution of the cases from the
EFCC, Obono-Obla said the AGF’s request was
in line with constitutional and statutory
provisions conferring on the AGF the supervisory
authorities over the EFCC and other anti-
corruption agencies.
He said, “The essence of getting the file was not
to take up the prosecution. The essence is in
line with the law that says the Attorney-General
of the Federation is the chief prosecutor of the
country.
“All those agencies are under the Office of
Attorney-General of the Federation. So, we have
to know what they are doing.
“We have to see what they are doing, so that if
they are not doing the right thing we will advise
them accordingly. The office of the AGF is as old
as this country; the office of the Director of
Public Prosecutions of the Federation is as old
as the country.
“These are some of the oldest institutions in this
country. They have a lot of experiences.”
When asked to give the details of the list
received from the EFCC, he said, “I don’t want
to go into the details for now. At the appropriate
time, we will let you know what we have seen
and what we are going to do.”
When reminded of his earlier claim that both the
EFCC and the ICPC were not cooperating with
the AGF, Obono-Obla said, “Yes, I said so
initially, but they are cooperating now because
they now know that the law is very clear and
that there is what we call EFCC enforcement
regulation which was made by the office of the
AGF pursuant to section 43 of the EFCC Act.
“Also in the constitutional provision, section
150(1) of the constitution, section 174(1) of the
constitution, sections 105 to 106 of the
Administration of Criminal Justice Act, it is very
clear that the AGF is the chief prosecutor of the
federation and the EFCC is under him.”
He said there was no pressure from higher
authorities before the EFCC submitted the details
requested to the AGF’s office.
The presidential aide said, “The law is clear. I
don’t think there had to be any superior
intervention. I have mentioned the constitution,
the administration of Criminal Justice Act and
the EFCC Act.
“The laws are very clear that they have to
comply with the request of the AGF. The AGF
can request files from any law enforcement
agency in Nigeria and the law enforcement
agency is obliged to comply.”
Denying any face-off between the AGF and the
EFCC, he said it probably took the anti-
corruption agency so long to respond to the
AGF’s request because of the number of cases
spanning over a decade that had to be compiled
by the agency.
He said, “Well, they have not refused (to
comply), we have the details from them now.
Maybe they were taking their time. As I told you
before, most of these cases are old cases from
2003 to 2004.
“So, if you make a request, it will take them time
to put all the cases together. But as I told you,
there cannot be any question of, they not
obeying us. They cannot afford not to obey the
Attorney-General of the Federation.”