A senior advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba, has threatened to take legal action against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to enable the court to determine if the agency is empowered to investigate the activities of the state governments.
Agbakoba alleged that the commission is currently operating outside the constitution against the background that it is a creation of the National Assembly.
According to him, EFCC has no powers to interfere with the activities of state governments.
“The Supreme Court in many of its decisions had held that federalism means two autonomous and independent governments and if that is correct, the EFCC does not have the right to go to the state and examine their accounts.
“Anybody can read section 46 of the EFCC Act and Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution. Section 36(12) states that all offences must be defined and when you now read Section 46, you ask yourself if it complies with Section 36(12) because it does not.
“So, part of the prayers I will seek in court is that EFCC ought not to exist in the first place because it is not a branch of the police and that the job done by the EFCC is the same one being done by the Police Special Fraud Unit.”
His rise against the anti-graft agency is based on what he called the attack against the governor of Kogi state, Yahaya Bello, by the EFCC.
Source: PM News.
