On the federalist plane, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Act has always stood on tenuous grounds. A central omnibus, galloping into town like some triumphant sheriff and sending state institutions diving for cover, can’t be in harmony with a federal constitution, pushing presidential democracy.
While the federal constitution rigidly separates functions between the central power and component state authorities, presidential democracy is even more clear-cut in separating powers among the three arms of government — legislature, executive and the judiciary.
The Ado-Ekiti Federal High Court, which on January 30 ruled that the EFCC could not launch probes into states’ finances without the nod of the state House of Assembly, did no more than reestablish these constitutional rubrics. It is hard if anyone can fault it on that score.
Yet, that judgment could be faulted on the altars of legalism, as fancy escapism from a central problem ruining Nigeria: sleaze. Although the court left open the window that the EFCC can indeed investigate and dock individuals accused of sleaze (as opposed to states as corporate bodies), it seemed to have wished away the all too glaring proof of institutional rot and willful subversion of state legislatures by the oppressive and insufferable executives.
Take the case of Ekiti, which Attorney-General dragged the EFCC and the Federal Government to court. In this same Ekiti, Governor Ayo Fayose had strutted into the House of Assembly, read a travesty that he called a year’s budget estimates and crashed down the gavel that he had passed the Appropriation Bill. The sheepish assembly and the fanatical crowd in the public gallery only roared in approval!
How could such a scenario approximate the court’s presumption that there is indeed a “State House of Assembly,” with such cynical and brazen rape from the executive? If that were so, how can such a legislature perform its over-sight function, on the executive, as the Constitution requires?
If that is well-nigh impossible, how does it checkmate brazen financial crimes by the executive, even with the thoroughly crippled, subverted and compromised legislature taking its chances, in the free gravy of graft?
And if that could be an ugly reality, how do you ensure public funds are spent for the greatest good of the greatest number (to paraphrase the philosopher, Jeremy Bentham) and that it does not sink into a few private pockets, sowing poverty and penury in the land, signifying some fearsome future clash between the haves and have-nots?
So, inasmuch as the Ado-Ekiti court’s verdict struck a big blow for federalism, it also strikes a near-fatal blow for probity and integrity in state finances. Yes, the court left open the window to prosecute individuals alleged to have stolen public funds. But with the legal cover now given a colluding and thoroughly subverted state legislature like Ekiti’s (and most of the other states’), how do you even do routine investigation without suffering institutionalised stone-walling?
Still, good or bad, this verdict, if not appealed and reversed, has stated the law as it is. Unfortunately, due to the cynical mind of extant players, and their unfazed penchant for bad faith and reckless manipulation, it is clear the law, as it is, appears not good enough to curb sleaze, the contemporary Nigerian pandemic; and the number one trigger of mass poverty and denied opportunities.
Indeed, the powerlessness of extant laws, in the face of cynical manipulation by state executives, accounted for much of the Olusegun Obasanjo-era grave constitutional infractions, where the EFCC, under Nuhu Ribadu, embarked on the tragic novelty of “simple minorities,” to induce federally subdued state legislatures to hastily impeach sitting governors, so that EFCC could dock them.
The cases of Plateau, Anambra and Oyo still scream out of the Obasanjo-era book of constitutional rapes, based on suspect patriotic motives — though the Oyo case resulted from a blow-out between then Governor Rashidi Ladoja and the late Lamidi Adedibu, that era’s Oyo political ‘garrison commander’.
If that was absolutely unacceptable — and the public outcry against it back then made that very clear — this seeming court-aided institutional cover for possible graft, even if it is legalistically sound cannot be good for the society. That is the big problem with the verdict.
If the verdict is not appealed and reversed, an option is to look at the laws again and somewhat forge how EFCC operations could be harmonised with the federal doctrine, given the clear and present danger sleaze constitutes to everyone. But again, that would achieve little, if the subversive mindset of the players is alive and well. That way, it might just be a matter of time before crooks in the public space fashion out a way to subvert the newly wrought set of laws.
But a more sustainable option would be for state legislature to sit up to the oversight functions, over their executives. With the current level of recruitment into these chambers, when whoever would be governor almost always has the lawmakers in his pocket, sponsoring the election of most of them, that would take some doing.
Still eventually, these state Houses of Assembly have to wake up to their constitutional duties and responsibilities. That is the only way they can keep watch over states’ finances, without some central super man riding into town and conking everyone in the head.
