Nuhu Ribadu, pioneer chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), says the commission has done “fairly well” in
its fight against corruption.
He, however, added that for
the war to be successful, law enforcement agencies like the Independent
Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the
police must “wake up from their slumber”.
Ribadu was speaking at
an anti-corruption townhall meeting tagged ‘A spanner in the wheel of
corruption’, organised by the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Foundation in Abuja,
on Monday.
He decried the high rate of corruption in the country,
pointing out that Nigeria has the number of corruption cases in the
world which is “probably bigger” than cases in all African countries put
together.
“The EFCC alone has over 3800 ongoing corruption cases
in the courts, not to talk of other cases,” he said, adding: “but they
have their hands full.
“They (EFCC) has done fairly well. You need
to see what these people go through to get one case to court. It is
hell. Because some people will do everything possible to make sure you
don’t drag them to court. They do not even sleep.
“Let the ICPC
wake up from this their slumber and start doing something too. Same with
government ministries. There are lots of government agencies that are
not doing anything to support the fight against corruption.
“The
Nigeria police force should also wake up and do what the EFCC is doing.
Same with the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary; why are we not
getting the convictions in the corruption cases? They have a role to
play as well.”
The former EFCC chairman, however, said the
situation of corruption in the country is “not always negative” as the
country has been able to record some strides in the anti-graft war.
“Nigeria
is the only country that has successfully recovered stolen money taken
abroad,” he said, adding: “Other countries in Africa and other places
have tried but they never succeeded.
Also speaking, Waziri Adio,
executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (NEITI), said for the problem of corruption to be addressed,
there is the need for Nigeria to first tackle “institutional
corruption.”
“Wherever monopoly exists, and where there is
institutional discretion and without measures of accountability, the
institutions will definitely be abused,” he said.
“We need to look
at issues of sanctions, systems and society. We focus too much on
sanctions but as important as they are, they won’t upturn the table.
“We
need to put a formidable system in place. If you have a society where
corruption is normalised, no matter the system and sanction, people will
abuse it.”
TheCable