Members of the House of Representatives may tinker with Section 12 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Act, 2003, to cause the ouster of EFCC chairman Mrs. Farida Waziri.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY gathered last night that if Section 12 (f) of the Principal Act is amended to say the boss of the EFCC must be an assistant inspector-general (AIG) of police, that means the EFCC boss must be a substantive and serving AIG.
Waziri retired as an acting assistant inspector-general of police, just as her substantive rank before she acted in that capacity was deputy commissioner of police.
If the bill, which is believed to be sponsored by groups opposed to Waziri, becomes law, then, she may not be qualified for a renewed term of four years after the expiration of her first tenure.
The EFCC chairman, who was nominated in 2007 by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and confirmed by the Senate, is entitled to a renewed term of four years when her four-year tenure expires later this year.
The impending bill, sponsored by Hon. Eko Ewa, and obtained exclusively by LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, is entitled “An Act to Amend the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act”.
If the bill is passed by the House of Representatives, it will be sent to the Senate for concurrence.
The bill seeks an amendment to Section 12 (f) of the Principal Act, to read that: “The investigation unit to be headed by a Retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police”.
The proposed piece of legislation also wants section 12, subsection 3 to read: “All petitions to the Commission shall be on oath and shall comply with the relevant sections of the Evidence Act.@
According to an explanatory note, the bill “seeks to amend the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, to provide for the qualification of the Commission’s Chairman and requirement for sending petitions to the commission”.
But in a reaction to the intendment of the bill, a lawyer, Mr. Sebastine Hon (SAN), said the piece of legislation was unnecessary and meant to serve the ulterior interests of a group in government who were not comfortable with the work of Waziri.
The senior advocate? said: “Given the modest achievements recorded by Waziri, which were not so recorded because she is a serving or retired AIG, and if we must do some comparison here, the ICPC, which has long been headed by retired justices of the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, has not achieved as much as—even one-quarter of what the EFCC has achieved under Waziri. So, I am really seeing the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau in this matter. ?
“It is being sponsored by a group, most likely people who are not comfortable with what the EFCC is doing so far, that are really out to stop Waziri from the likelihood of being reappointed as the EFCC chairman. And that is the problem with the larger society. We make laws that seek to protect personal or vested interests. We do not legislate in this country for the general interest of the citizenry.”?? ?
Several groups had, recently, called for the resignation of the EFCC boss on the grounds that she “perjured” to get her EFCC position.
According to the groups, the EFCC boss lied that she was an assistant inspector-general of police during her confirmation hearing at the Senate in 2007.
Though the Police Service Commission (PSC) agreed that she only acted as an assistant inspector-general of police, the PSC however warned that it remained the prerogative of the president to appoint whoever as the chairman of the anti-corruption body.
The dust later settled on the matter, but the new proposal may spark off a fresh row in legal and political circles in the country.
The pioneer chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, was a serving commissioner of police at the time of his appointment by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The House also seeks through another piece of legislation to clamp down on illegal possessors of arms.
The bill, if passed into law, would imprison an offender for a minimum of 1 year, if they failed to “apply for the renewal” of their “licence, permit or authorisation before the end of the period determined by the minister (of police affairs)”.
The bill is sponsored by Hon. Umar Adam Katsayal from Katsayal Federal Constituency of Katsina State.