By Raheem Nasir
If not well planned, a revolution for a good cause will not succeed, let alone a camouflaged “revolution” sponsored by suspected looters and fraudsters and others undergoing prosecutions or awaiting trials in the courts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The nation was informed through social media that a massive “revolution” in the form of nationwide protests would be held against the EFCC for the most spurious reasons possible.
That apart, the proposed protests planned for July 5, 2024, were to culminate into a similitude of #Endsars protests witnessed by the nation years ago, during which tens of people lost their lives and property, mainly public-owned, worth billions of naira were destroyed; and from which the nation is yet to fully recover. The protesters’ main goal was to get the present Chairman of EFCC, Olaonipekun Olukoyede, removed while pretending to be protesting against a few reported cases of overzealousness on the part of some operatives of the commission.
The call for the head of the EFFC’s boss was not for corruption or any illicit practices like some of his predecessors, but vaguely for some overzealousness of a few EFCC operatives while carrying out their sting operations.
We want to congratulate the Chairman of EFCC on the failed protests and the recently heightened attacks on the agency in the media. It shows that Olukoyede and his team are doing well! EFFC cannot expect Corruption not to fight back. And the fact that the sponsored protests of July 5, 2024, failed does not mean Corruption will still not sponsor other protests on the streets or in the media, as usual. The machinations and shenanigans of Corruption against EFCC are well-oiled, coordinated by professional consultants and ongoing.
What Olukoyede and his men need to do is to stop corruption at all costs before it can perpetrated; get the operatives more professional and undeterred in their commitment to save the nation from endemic corrupt practices, economic and financial crimes and sabotage.
What the nation has lost to corrupt practices in private and public lives is enough to fix the huge infrastructural deficits bedevilling Nigeria. What famed corruption, internet fraud and scams popularly referred to as 419 have cost the image of this country is dishearteningly unimaginable to the extent that every holder of the green passport is suspected to be corrupt abroad and genuine investors are scared of Nigerian businessmen and women.
It is very heartwarming that on the day of the daggers drawn when faceless anti-EFCC blabbers expected the worst to happen to EFCC’s offices across the nation and culminating in the removal of its hard-working chairman, the organisation ironically recorded yet another major victory against corruption and its allies as the court ruled on that same day, on the N2 billion naira pension fraud case and ordered the final forfeiture of at least 20 property linked to the convicted former chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina.
A Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, in a judgment, held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt that the 20 expensive properties, located in different parts of the country, were acquired illegally.
According to Justice Abdulmalik, the applicant, EFC, effectively discharged its responsibility, under the law, to establish that the property was acquired with proceeds of crime.
The judge also held that the “various individuals, who responded to an earlier interim forfeiture order, requiring interested parties to show cause why the properties should not be permanently forfeited, failed to establish their ownership of the affected properties with credible evidence.”
Out of the 23 property listed in the schedule, three of them were left out. Maina’s wife, Laila, who claimed to be a citizen of the United States, and some of his relatives and associates, including Uwani Usman, Alhaji Aminu Yakubu Wambai, Haruna Mu’azu Musa and Aliyu Abdullahi, had claimed ownership of the 23 property.
The anti-graft agency had earlier obtained an order of interim forfeiture of 23 properties linked to Maina, currently on an eight-year jail term for pension fraud to the tune of N2 billion.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Abdulmalik agreed with the lawyer of the EFCC, Farouk Abdullah, that those who claimed to own the property failed to effectively establish the alleged ownership as they could not produce credible evidence.
She said: “It is trite in law that civil cases in non-conviction forfeiture are hinged on the preponderance of evidence. Again, I hold that the respondents have failed woefully in tilting the scale of evidential weight in their favour.”
As far as the operations of EFCC since the assumption of office of Olaonipekun Olukeyede as Chairman is concerned, the preponderance of the evidence is that there is a new Sherif in town! The agency has recorded unprecedented achievements in the fulfilment of its statutory goals in terms of recoveries of humongous amounts of money, undaunted trials and convictions of high-profile corrupt public officials.
The gang-ups and simulated attacks on EFCC are like the cry of a beaten baby; it’s not unexpected. The burbles of corruption-fight-back against the agency that is often seen in the media would fizzle out like that of a failed revolution.
Raheem Nasir, a social policy advocate, sent this piece via raheemnasir2001@yahoo.co.uk
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