Perception of the Performance of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Darazo Local Government Area of Bauchi State, Nigeria ()
1. Introduction
One of the dominant issues affecting negatively the process of Nigeria’s development is corruption, particularly money laundering characterizing embezzlement of public resources, daylight briberies and distortion by authorities most especially by the police and other security agencies. Annually, Nigeria budgets trillions at the federal level, billions at each state level and multimillions at each of the 774 local government areas. Some multiple trillions of naira are annually budgeted by the federal (1), states (36 + 1) and 774 (LGA) (774 + 37 × 1 = 811) components of Nigeria’s structures. An estimated N22 trillion should have been budgeted annually in Nigeria covering the 3 tiers of government. Unfortunately, government at all level more often fails to account for their annual budgets. There are no adequate oversight concerns from the legislators at all levels as they might have been bribed to serve their criminal clients. No wonder all the infrastructural needs of Nigeria’s structure remain physically inadequate, the road network remains very poor and disturbing causing accidents leading to loss of lives and properties meant for the population’s livelihood. Millions of our graduates are unemployed and jobs meant for them are filled up by ghost workers’ salaries mostly pocketed by criminal managers who are apparently richer than their legitimate earnings. There are few hospitals, medical personnel and equipment far away to proportional requirements of the population. Public schools are already mockery units as no adequate facilities are available, with few teachers supplemented by over fifty percent ghost teachers. All these known problems exist side by side with agencies established to resolve them.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established to address the challenges posed by corrupt practices in response to a requirement called the global anti-corruption body, the Financial Action Task Force on money laundering (FATF), which threatened to name Nigeria as one of the Non-cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) in international community’s efforts to fight money laundering and corruption. While at inception there were high hopes that financial corruption in particular was going to be addressed by EFCC, it soon appeared to be worrisome that the crusade was being hindered by political considerations. This resulted in different perceptions about the activities of the commission by Nigerian public. What then is the public perception among the population of Darazo LGA of Bauchi state, this study presents the perception of about 100 respondents from Darazo LGA in relation to the performance of the commission, crossed examined with the opinion of 40 EFCC officials. The results are analyzed by adopting both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
2. Theories and Facts on Corruption
According to Klitgaard (1998) [1] corruption occurred when there is monopoly of power in excess discretion with absence of accountability. Corruption may take the forms of bribery, extortion, fraud, nepotism, graft, speed money, theft, embezzlements, falsifying of records, kickbacks, influence peddling in all ramifications. According to Ojameruaye (2011) [2] corruption happens when a public official accepts, solicits or extorts payment, or when private agents after a payment circumvent the law for personal advantage. Corruption is abuse of public position for private gain, against individual or group to whom one owes allegiance.
According to Odekunle (1986) [3] the theoretical problems regarding corruption in development in Nigeria is in the location of fundamental (the type of social organization) dictated by chosen type of development strategy and their implications on social relations at both interpersonal and group level, for values and for attitudes of the people. Here he seemingly stressed that so long as Nigeria resorted to the capitalist path as strategy for development over the years as consequence to its relationship with advanced capitalist economies through colonialism and imperialism, Nigeria remained dependent capitalist. As dependent capitalist the values of Nigerians must be capital accumulation and the fastest means of accessing capital base for huge economic growth is the state. The state has the huge resources through which capital could be flood to the individuals but more often through manipulation and criminalization of the laid down process. This manipulation and criminalization involve the inflation of contract for the sizeable criminal benefit of the contractor and the bureaucrat (awardees). As the contractor gets larger profit margin through such manipulation, the dashing out of money by contractor to lubricate and fasten the bureaucratic bottlenecks will be easier, as such everybody involve in processing a contract file is easily bribed with painlessness. The security guard, the messenger, the PA, PS and the chief executive are all freely bribed. This pollutes the system overtime, disorganize legitimate process of bureaucratization and those who innocently could not bribe are circled out in the queue of officiating.
Odekunle clearly described corruption as asking, giving, or taking a fee, or favor in exchange for the performance of a legitimate task, the pervasion or observation of the performance of such task or performance of an illegitimate task, hoarding, collusive price fixing, smuggling, transfer-pricing, inflation of prices, election rigging, illegal arrest for harassment or intimidation purposes, abuse, misuse, nonuse of office, position or power, dumping of absolute machinery or outdated drugs, illegal foreign exchange transactions, legal but unobvious, unfair and unjust acquisition of wealth, certificate forgery, false accounting and claims, diversion of public, cooperative or other person’s money or property to direct or indirect personal use, etc.
Odekunle’s theoretical position has been empirically discovered in multiple facts from Nigeria’s experience. Nigeria has reportedly lost about $600 billion from 1960 to date. About N1.3 trillion of public funds was laundered just between 2011 and 2015. Nigeria was ranked the most corrupt countries of the world in 1999 and 149th out of 179 countries on the 2020 Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International. The National Bureau of Statistics also reported that more than 60% of youth surveyed in Nigeria confessed to having bribed to obtain government service, speed up a procedure or avoid paying a fine. Consequently the rate of unemployment is about 42% with about another 21% underemployed. Currently there are graduates that stay unemployed for over 10 years. This further increases the pressure on them to offer bribes to secure jobs using all opportunity legitimate or criminal in sourcing the funds. Thousands of lives are lost annually to preventable disease, crimes and insecurity. Accordingly it was also founded that despite corruption being a challenge all over the world, very few countries in the developing economies have been ravaged by graft as Nigeria. Political corruption in Nigeria was incubated during colonialism around 1940’s and 1950’s when the political elites were thrust into positions of political power without any independent financial base supporting the then political careers. The British colonial policy discouraged indigenous private entrepreneurship. The state was the only available source of funds to the elites. For instance the Justice Coker Commission of 1962 revealed the corrupt involvement of members of the Action Group using the then marketing boards to steal millions of pounds. Similarly inquiries discovered serious corruption by political elites of the then Eastern region governed by National Congress for Nigerian Citizens. Unfortunately mismanagement, corruption, tribalism and nepotism were the reasons advanced for the bloody coup which overthrew the first republic on 15th January 1966 (Enweremadu, 2021 [4] ; Ogune, 2021 [5] ; Akinwale, 2019 [6] ).
All the regimes since then exhibited much higher levels of corruption and mismanagement. At least 51 political elites were convicted for corruption after the military coup collapsing the Shagari regime on 31st December 1983. In 1994 audit inquiry of the Central Bank of Nigeria indicted the administration of General Ibrahim Babangida of syphoning $12 billion of excess oil revenue derived from the Gulf War. Nigeria remains characterized by poverty, unemployment and insecurity in the midst of abundance. Nigeria’s gas reserves estimated at some 33.6 billion barrels and 1840.6 billion cubic feet respectively. In 2004 the United Nations Industrial Development Organization reported that about $100 billion private capital has been held overseas in 1999, representing about 70% of total private capital of Nigeria. There were additional $63 billion in non-monetary assets held overseas by Nigerians. At the same time in 1999 it was reported that 70% of Nigeria’s population live on less than a dollar per day. Only about 38% of females are illiterate with 51% of male literacy in 2004. In same period the World Bank reported that the per capita income in Nigeria was $390 (dropped from $1000 per capita in 1980) below the African average of $600. And the average life expectancy is 47 years in 2000. In 2005 Nigeria was classified among the 25 countries of Low-income Country under Stress (LICUS). LICUS in reports of World Bank are states characterized by very weak security, fractured societal relations, corrupt, breakdown in the rule of law and lacking mechanisms for generating legitimate power and authority. Corruption enveloped and induced endless ethno-religious conflicts, enlarged mass ignorance and poverty, exploited by the corrupt politicians for political gains damaging principles of democracy (Enweremadu, 2021) [4] .
From above, it is deductive that corruption cannot be eradicated under capitalism. All effort to eradicate corruption will simultaneously be infected by catalysts of capitalism that germinate microns of corruption multiplying itself altogether. This means agencies of anti-corruption can hardly be immured to corruption under capitalism as genuine effort will be frustrated by lack of adequate and proper vaccination against the corruption that must have been incubated by capitalism. No wonder all chairmen of EFCC so far to have served the commission were removed on allegation of same crime they were appointed to fight.
Marx believed that the only way to comprehend history is to use modes of production. [7] During slavery social organization and relations of production was shaped to favor the master against the slaves. In feudalism tensions were between the feudal lord and serf. And conflicts occur between owners and workers in capitalist system. A wage-capital relationship is formed between workers and owners which allows for easy exploitations as happened during both modes. Since one single entity is receiving all profit that entity will remain in higher position of power within the society and have more influences. Workers must acknowledge the fact that they are being exploited and realize major contradictions of capitalist system. With the constant and consistent pursuit of profit, owners will continue to reduce wages and attempt to develop of higher functionality with the end goal of replacing workers, thereby reducing the overall labor costs, there are both high periods of growth and recession within the capitalist system. The system is flawed because workers who depend on their jobs and wages are constantly vulnerable to the instability of the capitalist system. Marx believed that as soon as workers realize these fundamental contradictions and the fact that they are being exploited they will work together to over throw the system by means of revolution leading to formation of socialism. In socialism the state dictates the economic activities leading to redistribution of wealth to equalize society (Giddens, 2022) [8] .
It is pertinent to note that Nigeria’s dependent capitalism is practically characterized by institutional envelopment of characteristics of historical slavery, forms of feudalism and capitalism that holistically created a culture of confusion that generates a polluted system of corrupt practices, insecurity, dependency and vicious circle of underdevelopment. For instance every institution is programmed to serve a purpose of justifying the injustices in dependent capitalism. Every genuine effort to change for the better is sabotaged to project and negate against sincere actors.
3. Perception of the Performance of EFCC in Darazo LGA
Darazo Local Government Area is in Bauchi State of Nigeria. The headquarters of Darazo is Darazo town. Numbers of towns under the local government are Jimbin, Gabrarin, Lago, Yautare, Tauya, Wahu, Gabchiyari and Sade. It has population of 159,444 who are of Hausa ethnic group and mainly farmers, leather workers, potters, hunters and traders. The local government is mainly dominated by Fulani. The outspoken languages are Hausa and Zumbum. Islam and Christianity are mainly practiced. The population is known for the exhibition of Sharewa cultural festival. Darazo has 3014 square kilometers in area witnessing dry and rainy seasons annually. The average temperature of the area is 32 degrees centigrade with annual precipitation level of 1190 mm of rainfall (https://dbpedia.org/page/Darazo) [9] .
Following tables are analyzed to capture the opinions and perception of about 140 respondents surveyed covering the performance of EFCC since its inception.
From Table 1, it is evident that 79% of the respondents perceived that EFCC is an agency that fights corruption through prosecution of suspects but other organization cannot prosecute. However about 21% of the total of 140 respondents maintain that there is no difference between EFCC and other organizations.
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Table 1. Public perception of EFCC between other organizations.
Source: Field survey.
While the EFCC has special mandate provided by the EFCC (establishment) act 2004 [10] to stand against corrupt practice particularly money laundering. It is also empowered to investigate and prosecute all financial and economic offenders. All other establishments must adhere to the constitutional call for abolishment of corruption and corrupt practice. The principles of freedom, equality and justice as enshrined in the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria cannot be attained in any way in a corrupt society. All government establishments must be organized to significantly fight corrupt practice in their own ways. However, EFCC is chosen to focus specifically as its major and primary objectives as well as organizational goal the fight against corruption can’t be overemphasized. Part 2 section 6(c) of the EFCC (establishment) act 2004 [10] stated that:
The commission shall be responsible for the co-ordination and enforcement of all economic and financial crimes law and enforcement functions conferred on any other person or authority.
Table 2 is also evident that 96% of total of 140 and majority of the respondents maintain that EFCC has the main role of eradicating corruption. Undoubtedly, Section 6(e) stated that:
The commission shall be responsible for (e) the adaptation of measures to eradicate the corruption, economic and financial crimes; (f) the adaptation of measures to which include coordinating, preventing and regulating actions, introduction and maintenance of investigative and control techniques in prevention of economic and financial related crimes.
Table 3 also established that 94% of 140 respondents considered the mandate in EFCC (establishment) Act 2004 [10] is not visibly implemented as required in the field of the Nigeria’s population. Clearly then the commission has failed drastically in reducing corrupt practices in Nigeria. Nigeria as a dependent capitalist economy can hardly have laws that 100% pro = masses, and even those laws that formatively appearing pro = masses in content are practically deceptive at operations. No wonder Marx and Engels believed that laws in capitalist societies reflect economic relations. The domination of capital was revealed not merely in the content of laws, in the crimes and penalties, but in their enforcement
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Table 2. Perception of the role of EFCC.
Source: Field survey.
and their accessibility to only a small section of the people only. The police and the justice of the peace were partisan, assuming the guilt of the proletarian, and treating him rudely and brutally while the occasional middle class dependent was given privilege treatment. The law makers purposely left escape rout in the law, and the intention of the law was frustrated in courts which the master sat in judgment for itself. For instance the English law was muddled irrational and complex and the task of interpreting it was highly skilled one, it was well beyond the means and the activities of laborers to understand the nature. It is necessary to consider not merely the structure of formal law, but the possibilities which it offers for interpretation and evasion, and the manner in which it is enforced, for whom and by whom (Duncan, 1973) [11] .
Table 4 revealed that 71% of the total of the 140 respondents maintain that EFCC in reality of its operation has been witch hunting then dully applying the laws. And 23% further said the commission is been interfered by government.
While respondents are entitled to their personal opinion against the operation of the commission, the EFCC is never mandated to be selective or witch hunting. Section 7 of the EFCC (establishment) Act 2004 [10] is very clear about the powers of the commission:
The commission has power to: a) Cause investigation to be conducted as to
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Table 3. Perception of the role of EFCC on paper and its new operation in Nigeria.
Source: Field survey.
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Table 4. Perception of the extent of difference on paper and reality performance of the EFCC.
Source: Field survey.
whether any person, corporate body or organization has committed an offence under this Act or other law relating to economic and financial crimes;
b) Cause investigation to be conducted into the properties of any person if it appears to the commission that the person’s life style and extent of the properties are not justified by his source of income.
If any personnel of the commission acting contrary to the provision of this Act, is committing a crime against the commission and shall not be treated as operational objective of the commission. No wonder number of operatives have been subjected to parallel investigation, e.g., the Chairman of EFCC Ibrahim Lamorde, Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Magu and Nuhu Ribadu were all sacked on grounds of allegation of fraudulent application of mandates of the commission.
Table 5 established that 88% of the total of 140 respondents and majority maintain that the EFCC have realized its set objectives. This seems to be an obsessed conclusion by the respondents as corruption has not been eradicated. The existence of the commission has not deterred people from indulging in corrupt practice. Bureaucrats are still not adequately and transparently asked for accountability. Questionable properties are daily erected into mansions in all cities of Nigeria by people who cannot prove legitimacy of such wealth. Questionable gifts are given out by some states governors fearlessly and no audits queries are issued by office of the Auditor General of the federation. In Nigeria experienced the worse of financial and bureaucratic indiscipline in recent times.
From Table 6, it is also evident that about 93% of the total of 140 respondents expressed that they cannot remember EFCC arresting any former president of Nigeria despite media publicity of their properties suspiciously unaccounted for by them. This confirms to earlier expression of the respondents that the commission has been selective and witch hunting. This fact may be under the natural influence of the president being the employer of the chairman of the EFCC whose approval must be secured by the personnel before any attempt to arrest anybody is made by the commission. If chairman of the commission compromise, it will amount to the overall compromise of the entire commission.
From Table 7, it has been established that about 50% of the total of 140 respondents are of the opinion that they cannot remember EFCC arresting any state governor since inception. However 43% said they can remember the commission arresting up to 10 state governors in Nigeria. This very clearly indicates that the commission’s activities are not considerably publicized. The zero tolerance
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Table 5. Perception of the EFCC on whether it has realized its set objectives
Source: Field survey.
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Table 6. Perception of the EFCC on whether any former president of Nigeria is arrested.
Source: Field survey.
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Table 7. Perception of the number of former governors arrested by the EFCC.
Source: Field survey.
magazines that cover every activity of the commission is not easily accessible to the entire population of Nigeria as possibly few copies are printed and distributed to very few offices in Abuja. Nigeria’s population are very poor, about 90% are poor and more than 70% of the 200 million people living in abject poverty (less than a dollar per day) who cannot feed themselves adequately. In such situation people cannot afford to buy daily newspapers, radio and television must be luxury to the larger poor population, this is very disturbing.
Clearly Nigeria’s dependent capitalist state confirmed to the argument of Marx that, the state is held to be in all typical periods the property of the dominant class. The cohesive force of civilized society is the state, which is at all typical periods is exclusively the state of the ruling class, and in all cases remains essentially a machine for keeping down the oppressed, exploited class. Indeed the executive of the modern state (particular those of the dependent capitalist economics) like in Nigeria is but committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie in an effort to maintain the existing economic system and social structure, which is from its view point the best. Power remains in the hands of the capitalist (through criminalized structure of fearless vote buying by only the rich or sponsored by the rich) who must use the law, the various socializing institution and the means propaganda to protect themselves (Duncan, 1973) [11] . This shows why the majority poor Nigerians at the grass root particularly those at Darazo LGA could not access adequate information about the general activities of the EFCC.
Table 8 indicates that 43% of the 140 respondents and majority maintained that EFCC have not arrested any local government chairman by commission. About 7% said only one chairman was arrested, 7% said the commission arrested about 2 to 10 local government chairmen and 7% opined that the commission arrested between11 to 20 local government chairmen. And 36% of them said more than 20 local government chairmen were arrested by the commission. However field observation by researcher proved that more local government chairmen were arrested than members of the higher tiers of government. This observation is in line with earlier position of respondents that the EFCC have erred and acted selectively than uniformly as required by the EFCC Act.
4. Conclusions
To end corruption practices, it is important to engage the youth on how to fight corrupt practices to enshrine integrity, accountability and transparency into the fabric of our society. As predominant victims of corruption, the Nigerian youth are instrumental in the fight against corruption. The youth can use peer influence to spread values of transparency and accountability. There is no doubt several machineries have been instituted in fighting corruption, including the establishment of Code of Conduct Bureau, Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. While Nigeria’s agencies have not lived up to expectation, there are instances of relative gains. Justice News (Thursday, February 16, 2023) [12] revealed that the US Department of Justice will partially return the sum of $1 billion to Federal Republic of Nigeria in line with the agreement to repatriate assets traceable to the kleptocracy of the former governor of Bayelsa State in Nigeria, Diepreye Solomon Alamieyeseigha. Alamieyeseigha served as elected governor from 1999 until his impeachment in 2005 and has since passed away. It has been discovered that DSP’s official salary for the whole period was approximately $81,000 but his declared income from all sources was $248,000. Paradoxically DSP accumulated property worth
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Table 8. Perception of EFCC on number of LGA chairmen arrested since inception.
Source: Field survey.
millions of dollars. These include property in Rockville, Maryland acquired in his first term as governor of Bayelsa State. Title to the property has been transferred to Solomon and Peters Limited. The company pleaded guilty instead of DSP himself to money laundering in Nigeria in 2007. In May 2013, US District Court in Maryland issued a forfeiture following an investigation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigation (HIS), Asset Identification and Removal Group in Baltimore. The Justice Department and HIS successfully forfeited approximately $400,000 from an investment account traceable to DSP. The US agrees to transfer 100% of the net forfeited assets to Bayelsa State in Nigeria. The agreement reflects the sound principles for ensuring transparency and accountability adopted at the Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GEAR) in December 2017 in Washington DC hosted by the United States and the United Kingdom. This was done in support of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The case was brought under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative by a team of dedicated prosecutors in the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section working in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Those Agencies are set to safeguard the US financial system from criminal money laundering and to recover the proceeds of foreign official corruption (Ogune, 2021) [5] . This has been proven as well established, establishments meant for the prevention and control of economic and major financial crimes at the global level. If any laundered money is not detected, it must be a deliberate oversight.
According to Oyewo (July 18, 2017) [13] , there is an urgent need for a comprehensive overhaul of our administration of criminal justice system. Most times a lot of questions are begging for answers in Nigeria. Why is it that it was not possible to effectively prosecute for instance Ex-Governor James Ibori in Nigeria but pleaded guilty before the U.K Court? We need to look into the practices of our prosecutorial and adjudicatory bodies to determine elements that are corruptly compromising the criminal justice administration in Nigeria. The National Assembly must also put aside selfish interests, to pass laws that will effectively overhaul our justice system, including the recovery of stolen assets.
In line with above argument, members of the general public in Darazo Local Government Area also perceived negatively the performance of the EFCC. Certainly, more corrupt criminals are parading in freedom than imprisoned. Corruption has compromised our democracy with open vote buying at some levels with further systemic imprisonment of the general public by organized sabotage against transparency. There is no explanation for possessing agencies of anti-corruption by the Nigerian government just to serve as mere decorations. Science and technology are meant for development, they should be used for the same purpose in detecting crimes of corruption and acting against the actors accordingly. The legitimate income of every citizen is known scientifically and proceeds beyond legitimacy can’t be spirit. If UK and US can trace, the government of Nigeria can follow suit. Paradoxically, it is also clear that the states in capitalist economies are simply the representative of the bourgeoisie. And states in dependent capitalist economies like Nigeria are apparently the only source to criminally manipulate and accumulate huge capital for further exploitation and domination. To strengthen democracy and subsequently egalitarianism, there must be strengthened agency that execute egalitarian laws particularly anti-corruptions that are directly applied against selfish authorities.
It’s worth mentioning that this study covered predominantly Darazo LGA of Bauchi State and is limited to public perception of the performance of EFCC in fighting corruption. In view of all above, it is suggestive that more studies covering the 774 LGA of Nigeria be conducted to ascertain the grass root assessment of the performance of the commission to determine a clearer national outlook.
5. Recommendation
1) There is more need to understand the factors that work against the success of the EFCC. From the results above, it is clearer Nigeria needs sincere political will to fight corruption. This double standard must be stopped by all means.
2) Henceforth, there must be a death penalty for high profile economic crimes to deter the shameless public office abuses and associated corrupt practices.
3) The youth must be thoroughly involved and mobilized objectively through Marx-based Sociological and Anthropological teachings. This can happen only when practitioners in Sociology and Anthropology themselves have proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are intellectually liberated. That can happen only when Sociology is practically treated as more important than the bondage calls in religious principles.
4) The ruling class must be intellectually handled and guided so that the university educational system is not turned into a disguised structure for the imprisonment of intellectuals through deliberate and frustrating capitalist policies, enveloped and handed over to stooges, who are simply programmed to be managers of universities for private interest.