On June 21, 2021, now-suspended chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, hinted that now-President Bola Tinubu, then-national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was being probed. He was also said to have demanded the suspect’s assets declaration form when he was governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007.
Reacting to media enquiry about Tinubu, who, 16 years after his gubernatorial sojourn, continues to have corruption suspicion around his person because of his stupendous wealth (he told the Ataoja that he was richer than Osun State which rakes in billions of naira monthly from IGR, federation allocations and even loans) Bawa said, “you asked me a question earlier about arresting people before an investigation and now you are saying why didn’t we arrest Tinubu? Investigation is ongoing. When you are investigating matters like this, they don’t end in a day.”
On June 14, 2023, two years after Bawa’s unending probe of Tinubu, the hunter became the hunted and Tinubu, now Bawa’s direct principal, ordered his own probe of the embattled EFCC chair and unlike the motion-without-movement of Bawa’s probe, Tinubu pushed his former investigator out of the comfort of his office into the gulag of the Secret Police and the information at my disposal suggested the gangly fellow, is without any kind of company in “safe custody.”
With Tinubu’s putsch against Bawa, all presidents after Obasanjo, have had to sack at least one EFCC boss with Buhari alone sacking two: Ibrahim Lamorde and Ibrahim Magu, and all the seven (four substantive and three acting chairmen, including Magu who acted for five years) to lead agency since creation are from the northern part of the country in what appears like a design to share the two main anti-corruption bodies between the North and the South.
While North has held tightly to EFCC since Nuhu Ribadu, now the National Security Adviser to Tinubu, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), widely panned as the toothless version of EFCC, has been reserved for the South, since now-late Mustapha Akanbi, a Yoruba from the North, and ex-Appeal Court boss, served as the pioneer chairman from 2000 to 2005.
That means, even at a time, the two commissions were headed by northerners because by the time Nuhu was debuting as the chair of EFCC in 2003, Akanbi was still in office as ICPC chair and the all-North arrangement subsisted till Akanbi left two years after Ribadu took charge, at the other end of anti-sleaze war.
Another northerner, Abdullahi Bako, a lawyer, also briefly took charge at ICPC between August and November 2011, but all substantive chairmen since Akanbi have been southerners; from Justice Emmanuel Ayoola (retd) to Ekpo Una Owo Nta and now the incumbent, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, whose five-year term, should end on February 4, 2024, having been sworn in, in substantive capacity on February 4, 2019, though his acting period began in January, 2018.
It is likely that Obasanjo thought appointing a northerner as pioneer EFCC chair, was a regional balancing act, considering the Yoruba heritage and name of Akanbi. But the fact remains that the jurist was from a state, captured alongside North.
Akanbi and Ribadu gave the sleaze-fighting agencies, distinctly diametrically-opposed DNAs. Strangely, the jurist, who should be prosecutorial in his approach, chose the path of professional investigation while the police officer, who should ordinarily be inclined towards investigation, chose prosecutorial route, including using the media, possibly to have an advantage against powerful suspects.
While the real results of the different approaches remain debatable, the public perception credit has always been given to EFCC and if Ribadu, with all his involvements in politics with those he once tagged “dirty”, is still fairly rated as a patriot today, with some goodwill, following him to his new office, the impression he made at the Commission and the public perception of it, is mainly responsible.
Papa Akanbi would go on to make ICPC what can be likened to “slow poison”, achieving “results” quietly and refusing to make its engagements visible to Nigerians. The self-imposed diffidence, has over time, erased the relevance of the Commission from public consciousness and the fear-factor leverage, which anti-corruption war requires, as deterrence on its own, completely lost. Chairmen that came after Akanbi, including the incumbent Professor of Law, have continued to work within the “go slow” and “no noise” mentality. If you ask an average Nigerian if ICPC should be nixed this moment, the answer would be a “yes”. I know former staff who would want the Commission cancelled with immediate effect. Southerners who have handled it, haven’t justified public funding of the agency.
The same applies to EFCC. Northerners who have ruled it, sustaining the Ribadu gra-gra (bravado); to their credit, have retained the fear factor, the flip side of which is the manifest corruption among the rank and file and the unbridled display of excessive hubris by successive chairmen.
For years, as a reporter in Abuja, I covered both commissions from inception. Internal leadership recruitment hasn’t paid off for EFCC, while external recruitment, hasn’t benefitted ICPC either. But none of the substantive chairmen of ICPC had been pushed out before time, while none of the chairmen of EFCC, had completed term. Even Ribadu was pushed out by now-late YarAdua, forcing him to Kuru, in Jos. Even gentleman Jonathan fired Farida Waziri, the only female.
With Bawa now booted out, there have been agitations that the EFCC top seat should rotate to the South, with a northerner taking over at ICPC after Owasanoye. In fact, the Wikipedia listing of EFCC had been adjusted to have AIG Hakeem Odumosu (retd) as the executive chairman of the commission, despite his denial and disavowal of the report, projecting his appointment. Thankfully, the verified website of the commission still has Abdulkarim Chukkol as the Ag. chair.
In his 32 days as President, Tinubu like Trump has shown he could be a disruptor and avant-garde in his policy-approach. The crass pro-North cronyism of his predecessor should push the current push to have North and South swap major appointments under Tinubu. But that won’t make the new man, different from the old. Even if such swap is desirable in certain situations, sleaze-fighting, should be about competence, right mindset, orientation, maturity and background.
The day Bawa gathered journalists in Lagos to celebrate a year in office, I knew his end was imminent. Brash and unrestrained, the power of the office simply wore him invisibility, just like those before him. But southerners have also robbed ICPC of needed bite, making it to appear like a drain on common wealth. Bawa’s successor can’t be about race or ethnicity. Both North and South have come short.
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