By Cajetan Mmuta, Awka
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has subjected the officer behind the trending video of former Anambra State governor, Willie Obiano, being interrogated by the agency, to appropriate disciplinary action in line with its guiding principles.
A statement by its spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said the trending video was not authorised by the anti-graft agency, and that it has no place in its mode of operations.
The statement said: “The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has been drawn to a trending video showing the former Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, in the custody of the Commission.
“The commission wishes to distance itself from the said video, which is completely at variance with the established Standard Operating Procedure of the EFCC.
“A discreet investigation ordered upon discovery of the leak has revealed the errant officer behind the odious act, and he is currently being subjected to appropriate disciplinary action”.
It will be recalled that the video of Obiano in the custody of the EFCC had appeared online on Sunday afternoon, prompting immediate sarcastic reactions from the political divides, with one of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leaders, Chief Victor Umeh, claiming that Obiano did not use sand to build infrastructure in Anambra.
A former media aide to the detained former governor also took issues with EFCC for leaking the video online.
Meanwhile, members of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety), a civil society organisation (CSO), the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Anambra State Council, and the monarch of Umueri in Anambra East local government area, Igwe Ben Emeka, have criticised the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the ‘embarrassment’ caused immediate past governor Willie Obiano by detaining him over alleged N42 billion misappropriation.
Chairman of the InterSociety, Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi, in a statement made available to newsmen yesterday, said it was wrong for the EFCC to keep Obiano in long detention over mismanagement of fund belonging to the state.
This is as the Anambra monarch and the NUJ condemned the continuous detention of Obiano,
The traditional ruler of Umueri, Anambra East local government area, Anambra State, Igwe Ben Emeka, in his reaction yesterday, urged the EFCC to quickly free Obiano.
Emeka, who wondered why a former governor would be arrested without formal invitation, noted that it amounted to humiliation and victimisation.
The monarch, who spoke when he received the state executive of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) on courtesy call in his palace, enjoined other leaders from the South-East region to join hands in demanding for Obiano’s urgent release.
He said, “Journalism is a very good profession and a tool with which people get to know what is happening in the world. We want many people to support in calling on EFCC to free Obiano. It is a humiliation and victimisation on someone who worked in Anambra. We know all the good works he did for Anambra. We are not complaining. Besides, they did not invite him. So, why are they humiliating him. Why should they also go after the governor’s wife. Is she a civil servant?
“Aside from the international airport he built, he paid civil servants very promptly until he left office. But we have other governors all over the country who don’t pay workers. So many former governors and corrupt leaders are going round the streets without any hindrances. But they go after a good man. Obiano knows the conditions of workers and the fact they buy from the same markets where prices of commodities have risen,” he stated.
Chairman of the NUJ, Anambra State Council, Dr Odogwu Emeka Odogwu, in his speech, condemned the arrest and continuous detention of Obiano, and urged EFCC to release him and follow due process in trying him, instead of ‘media trial’.
Also, Umeagbalasi said, “It is the position of the Int’l Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission does not need, and is not required by law, to keep former Governor Obiano in long detention over mismanagement of Anambra’s billions.
Umeagbalasi, who referred to Section 46 and 7 of the EFCC Act, noted that the EFCC and its Act “deals with non-violent criminal and illicit activity or activities involving public officers, former public officers, individual citizens and body corporates, including social enterprises.
According to the NGO, economic and financial crimes, therefore, are paper, electronic and property based traceable crimes, otherwise called “White-Collar or Bureaucratic/Institutional Crimes”.
“In other words, their pieces of evidence and proofs are easily traceable or can easily be assembled.”
He said, “Instances include money laundering or stashing away of public funds, onshore or offshore acquisition of choice and questionable properties while holding office in public governance, ostentatious lifestyles, or lifestyles that are far above the income of a public office holder or immediate past public office holder, gross disparity between the paper and field contents of the pre-public office occupation asset declarations, and their post-public office occupation asset declarations, misappropriation and misapplication of public funds or diversion of public funds such as local government allocated funds which never reflect in the state appropriation and supplementary appropriation laws; etc.”
He pointed out that “In the case of former Governor Obiano, EFCC has no legal business holding him in long detention as doing so diminishes the EFCC competence, and marks the same out as economic and financial crimes commission of crude and typewriter age or era.”
“Long detention also does not offer competence in criminal investigations regarding crimes of economic and financial nature. Under Section 35 of the 1999 Constitution, long detention, such as maximum sixty to ninety days detention, is factored within the confines of arresting and detaining suspects alleged to have committed offenses bordering on capital punishments, especially serious crimes of premeditated homicide or murder, terrorism, armed robbery, abduction and treason; all for purposes of complex criminal investigations,” the group stated.
Umeagbalasi further explained, “It is a settled law in Nigeria that no offence under Economic and Financial Crimes is a capital punishment warranting long detention for purpose of “man-machine-mental” investigations.”
“Therefore, holding former Governor Obiano for long in detention, which is entering its fifth day, may end up being counter-productive and expose EFCC as incompetent, crude, draconian and lawless anti graft agency.”
Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has revealed why it is yet to release former governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, even after granting him bail.
EFCC said it was still keeping the former Anambra State governor, who was arrested last week in Lagos, because he was yet to meet all his bail conditions.
The commission’s chairman, Abdurasheed Bawa, said while addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday:
“He has been granted bail. But we await (when) he fulfils his bail conditions.”
He did not elaborate on the bail conditions.
Obiano was arrested at the Murtala Muhammad International Airport in Lagos at about 8.30 p.m. on Thursday.
That was the same day he officially vacated office in Anambra after the constitutionally permitted eight-year tenure.
The ex-governor was arrested as he was preparing to board a flight to Houston, Texas, United States.
On Friday, he was transferred to Abuja for further questioning by the EFCC’s Lagos Zonal office, where he was first detained.
By yesterday, Obiano had spent four nights in EFCC custody.
In another development, Anambra State governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has reacted to Obiano’s arrest by EFCC.
Speaking during a thanksgiving service held at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Isuofia, Soludo promised that Obiano would regain his freedom soon.
Soludo described the embattled former governor as a good man who did his best in Anambra State.
It will also be recalled that in his inaugural speech during his Inauguration, Soludo has also at that occasion paid glowing tribute to his predecessor, Obiano, describing him as an honourable gentleman and a leader.
Obiano who was arrested by EFCC on the night of Thursday, March 17, is being investigated on a number of alleged embezzlement of funds which are yet to be proven.
