There has been no let-up in the feuding between the State Security Service and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Evidence, if any was needed, was provided last week when the anti-graft agency complained publicly that the SSS was hindering its investigation into the $2.1 billion arms fund scandal. To save the faltering anti-corruption war, President Muhammadu Buhari should intervene and ensure seamless cooperation among the security agencies.
The bickering between the two agencies is already slowing down several trials relating to the arms procurement fund trial. In a statement by the EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, the agency deplored the refusal of the SSS to release some of its officials for questioning as requested. He recalled that as part of investigation into the arms procurement scandal perpetrated in the office of the National Security Adviser, similar requests to release officers from the Nigerian Army, Air Force and Navy had been honoured. Only the SSS, it alleged, was adamant. This riposte came in response to an earlier accusation by the SSS that the request to question its operatives was merely an attempt to humiliate it to avenge the SSS director-general, Lawal Daura’s contribution to scuttling the Senate’s confirmation of the acting EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu. The anonymous SSS “source” labelled the EFCC invitation “overzealousness and lack of professionalism” and vowed that the agency would not bend.
Inter-agency rivalry spilling over onto the public space has been a hallmark of the Buhari administration. His campaign against graft is floundering precisely because strategic thinking is absent in his approach to governance, remarkably even in his headline anti-corruption programme. The SSS twice undermined him by writing damning reports on Magu to the Senate: one after Buhari had ordered an investigation and cleared the nominee of all allegations. When in October 2016, SSS operatives raided the homes of senior judges in Abuja and several other cities in an anti-corruption sweep, it later emerged that there was no coordination with the EFCC. The SSS alleged that it acted only after the EFCC failed to do so even after sending it crucial intelligence on the judges.
The outside world has taken notice. The United States Bureau for Counter-Terrorism in its 2016 Country Reports, said lack of cooperation and synergy among Nigeria’s security agencies were hampering the war on terror and by extension, the anti-corruption and anti-money laundering campaigns. The confusion in the Buhari team also features open quarrels between the Attorney-General of the Federation and the EFCC, as well as solo operations by the Nigeria Police, such as the botched raid on the home of the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, which prompted public disavowals by other agencies.
Failure to act, devise an intelligent strategy to fight corruption and organise effective coordination and supervision are crippling the crusade. Already, the trial of Sambo Dasuki, the immediate past NSA and main suspect in the arms fund scandal, has been slowed down as the SSS, which has custody of him, and the EFCC, the main investigator, have initiated separate, uncoordinated trials. In May, the SSS failed twice in one week to produce Dasuki at a FCT High Court where the EFCC is prosecuting him on 22 counts, even while he is facing another 19 counts at a Federal High Court, Abuja, filed by the AGF.
The mess has acquired a stench that demands immediate, decisive action by Buhari. The President should understand that it is functional institutions that drive the world’s most successful democracies and advanced economies. Agencies must be made to work efficiently and cooperate to achieve national objectives. He should start the process by knocking heads, punishing offenders and evicting the recalcitrant from office. No one should be above the law: Daura should not carry on as if he is above the law, no matter his personal relationship with the President. He should be compelled to surrender his officials for questioning and any other action deemed appropriate. Several ranking military officers are undergoing trials for their part in the orgy of theft that thrived under the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency. Several officials of the Donald Trump administration have been interrogated in the widening inquiry into Russian meddling in the US elections; some like Michael Flynn, his first NSA, had to resign, while his adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been quizzed by investigators and legislators.
Buhari simply cannot carry on with a disorderly team or hope to achieve success with such. Uncomplimentary stories continue to swirl around members of his inner circle. With less than two years to the end of his term, he needs to demonstrate firmness and the discipline expected of him. His government is drifting and not delivering largely because of his inattentiveness and the impunity of some of his appointees.
Saving the anti-corruption war, which has suffered a number of setbacks, requires full cooperation by all law enforcement agencies. That should be Buhari’s main task today.
