Last month, President Bola Tinubu removed Abulrasheed Bawa as the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The president, who assumed office on May 29 with the highest corruption perception index of any Nigerian leader, said he suspended Mr Bawa to allow a detailed investigation into multiple petitions assailing the anti-graft chief’s conduct in office.

Mr Bawa was subsequently held by the State Security Service (SSS), where he lingered under interrogation without access to a legal representative as of this publication.

While Mr Tinubu’s supporters have praised his action as indicative of his resolve to promptly address complaints against public servants in his administration — in contrast with Muhammadu Buhari’s manifest laziness in handling similar transgressions — anti-corruption activists are sceptical about the timing and circumstances preceding his wrath towards Mr Bawa, who is among the first cadet of the EFCC in 2003 and became the youngest officer to lead the agency following his confirmation to the position by the Nigerian Senate in 2021.

For one, Mr Tinubu’s action was seen as retaliation because Mr Bawa, 42, had launched an investigation into Mr Tinubu’s alleged fraud and racketeering while he was in charge of the EFCC’s Lagos zonal office in 2020.

“We all saw that Bawa was investigating Tinubu just before he became the EFCC chairman and moved to the headquarters in Abuja,” anti-corruption analyst Sola Olubanjo said. “The president being so prompt in removing a man that investigated him strikes me as too convenient.”

Mr Tinubu’s action also appeared more aimed at giving a respite to his political allies under Mr Bawa’s crosshairs, some of whom initiated the purported petitions used to oust Mr Bawa, Mr Olubanjo said.

“We should see this second part for what it is: a clear obstruction of active investigations against Senate President Godswill Akpabio and former governors like Bello Matawalle and Kayode Fayemi,” Mr Olubanjo said. “The president has immunity from criminal prosecution, so he is only helping his allies in the ruling party who don’t have such protections.”

Mr Matawalle, who completed his one term as Zamfara governor on May 29, has been publicly furious against Mr Bawa for initiating an expansive probe of his administration in one of the nation’s poorest states. Mr Matawalle accused Mr Bawa of seeking a $2 million bribe to ease the probe, which he purportedly rejected. The anti-graft chief denied the claim, and Mr Matawalle fled to Egypt, apparently to evade arrest.

Mr Akpabio, who became the Senate President on June 13, was for months hiding from the EFCC under the guise of a protracted illness.

Mr Fayemi, until October 2022 the governor of Ekiti, was also being probed for stealing billions from his state. He denied the allegations and stonewalled progress in his case.

Others expected to have a respite from Mr Bawa’s ouster include Governor Yahaya Bello, whom anti-graft operatives already traced millions of dollars in Kogi funds into his wife’s foreign bank accounts, as well as those of his associates. Mr Bello denied all allegations and accused Mr Bawa of victimising his administration and family in service to his political detractors.

“All these corrupt characters and their ilk will now have a respite under the Tinubu government,” Mr Olubanjo said. “It is disturbing and a reversal of any meagre progress the EFCC made under Buhari, who was just as corrupt and indifferent to corrupt aides and associates.”

Mr Tinubu has denied favouring his allies with Mr Bawa’s removal, which came barely days after the president removed Godwin Emefiele, another perceived adversary, as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, with his spokesman Dele Alake saying the president wanted to start his administration on a clean slate.

Still, Mr Olubanjo said Mr Tinubu, who once forfeited money to American law enforcement for drug trafficking, should use his presidency to burnish his unsavoury image.

“He should see his presidency as an opportunity to repair his image and leave a legacy of a leader who eschewed personal political and pecuniary considerations to foster a decisive law enforcement system for the Nigerian people,” the analyst said.

Buhari’s anti-graft scorecard and Tinubu’s new pledge

Mr Tinubu, after being sworn in by Chief Justice of Nigeria Kayode Ariwoola at Eagle Square, pledged in his inaugural address to reform the judiciary and fight corruption, backgrounds and political differences notwithstanding.

“Our government will continue to take proactive steps such as championing a credit culture to discourage corruption while strengthening the effectiveness and the efficiency of the various anti-corruption agencies,” he said.

If sustained, Mr Tinubu’s plan will swiftly outpace that of his predecessor, Mr Buhari, who is generally seen to have failed woefully in anti-graft efforts despite his famous May 2015 inaugural rallying cry that “Corruption will kill Nigeria if Nigeria does not kill corruption.”

While he failed to tackle corruption, Mr Buhari, 80, who had previously referred to the judiciary as a “headache” that hampered his efforts to tackle corruption, arrested judges who were allegedly linked to corruption in midnight raids across the country. However, his crude tactics proved counter-productive in the end.

According to a 2020 experience-based corruption index by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Nigerian judicial sector collected or traded an estimated N9.4 billion in a bribe-for-judgement scam scheme between 2018 and 2020.

A similar Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS) conducted by the ICPC in February states that the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, and the National Judicial Institute are among the institutions in the judicial sector that were identified as having “High Corruption Risk” (HCR) in the country.

Mr Buhari endorsed several laws aimed at enhancing anti-corruption institutions, but implementation was largely scanty throughout his administration. He also signed the financial autonomy for the judiciary, which was also largely opposed by the governors led by former governor Kayode Fayemi via the Nigerian Governors’ Forum.

During his campaign for president, Mr Tinubu said that preventive measures and wealth creation would be his approach towards eliminating corruption, a strategy that some experts criticised as “unrealistic” and primarily based on wealth-sharing.

Based on the views of rights and anti-graft experts, Peoples Gazette has compiled seven key scopes that Mr Tinubu may consider to live true to his promise of reducing public corruption and enhancing the judiciary.

Synergise agencies to eliminate waste

What many Nigerians have yearned for over the past years has been the strengthening in the operations of the existing anti-corruption agencies, especially as relating to duplication of work among the existing agencies tasked with fighting corruption.

Nigeria has two primary anti-graft agencies: the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), formed in 2000 and 2003, respectively, have the authority to investigate, prevent, and prosecute incidents of corruption.

Beyond the successes, Nigeria’s anti-corruption campaign in recent years has been plagued by several challenges, including those coming from overlapping functions among several agencies, which blunts their efficiency.

As a result, anti-corruption experts have criticised anti-corruption authorities for functioning in divisions, failing to share information, and as well engaging in conflict. For example, the recent dispute on May 30 between the SSS and the EFCC, in which the domestic intelligence office blocked anti-graft personnel from entering the EFCC zonal office in Ikoyi, Lagos.

Both agencies had coexisted in the building for several years without the spectacle witnessed last month.

ICPC chief Bolaji Owasanoye had said that the commission would discontinue cases outside its jurisdiction or already being handled by EFCC. He said the move was aimed at avoiding conflict with other anti-corruption agencies.

Although the president took prompt action by ordering the SSS to evacuate the building, which was widely applauded, many Nigerians now want Mr Tinubu to extend the same measures to other agencies to ensure adequate collaboration with other law enforcement and relevant agencies to ensure effective investigations and as well, address leadership disagreements that could jeopardise efforts to combat corruption.

“Truly, there has been an inability to synergise between the anti-corruption agencies, which is a major challenge,” Olanrewaju Suraj of Human and Environmental Development Agenda said “Because they are not even covering the field enough.”

“There are more than enough cases for the anti-corruption agencies to deal with,” he added. “ICPC has a broader mandate in fighting graft while the EFCC deals with financial crimes and economic sabotage.”

Another look at immunity

When late President Umar Yar’Adua advocated the removal of the immunity clause from the Nigerian Constitution in 2008, vowing to lead the fight as the country’s first president in order to combat corruption, the idea elicited strong reactions from a wide range of parties.

While everyday Nigerians applauded the initiative — in which he also disclosed his assets — politicians across the country elicited cold feet towards the proposal. The former president’s idea died with him when he summarily passed on in 2010.

Since then, no government or president has championed changing the statute that protects elected executive officers from being charged with a crime or detained while in office.

The Constitution grants the president, vice president, governors, and deputy governors immunity from civil and criminal prosecution while they are in office.

But critics say these provisions have been blamed for hindering anti-corruption because they enable top elected officials to commit heinous economic and financial crimes while taking shelter under immunity throughout their tenure spanning four years — or eight years if reelected.

A 2021 U.S. ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Nigeria’ identified the immunity clause in the Nigerian Constitution as a source that impedes the fight against corruption in the country.

Like Mr Matawalle, governors often know they are likely to be arrested and charged after leaving office and often respond to this by fleeing the country just before handing over to a successor, especially in a situation where a successor is of another political party.

Political interference 

Political interference and the use of “nolle prosequi,” which have resulted in the persistent withdrawal of case files relating to criminal corruption charges against prominent persons, have been identified among the most significant challenges to the anti-corruption authorities’ efforts in recent times.

Federal attorneys-general (AGFs) and the EFCC have previously clashed over the agency’s independence, with the AGFs being accused of taking over corruption cases involving high-profile individuals by exercising their powers under Section 174 of the 1999 Constitution, which grants the attorney-general overriding authority on corruption cases.

For example, Mohammed Bello Adoke, AGF from 2010 to 2015, was said to have taken over and terminated roughly 25 prominent cases under investigation by the EFCC.

Michael Aondoakaa, his predecessor, who served under Mr Yar’Adua, was reported to have squashed a number of high-profile corruption cases. And Abubakar Malami, Mr Buhari’s AGF, was accused of exploiting his position to suppress high-profile corruption cases.

From Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer EFCC boss, to Mr Magu, who acted as chairman between 2015 and 2020, AGFs and chairpersons of anti-corruption agencies have a history of engaging in power struggles, often publicly, over the statute of their independence. Messrs Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Lamorde, and Magu were all fired after falling out of favour with the main justice ministry.

Many Nigerians expect a change of pattern in the hostile relationship between the attorney general’s office and the EFCC chairperson under the Tinubu administration. In addition, policy experts have also urged for a reform of the AGF’s authority over law enforcement agencies.

“I personally think we should have a constitutional amendment to take that power away from any AGF,” Suleiman Suleiman, executive director of the Centre for Media, Policy, and Accountability (CMPA), stated.

Mandatory public assets declaration

President Tinubu has been advised to emulate Mr Yar’Adua and declare his assets publicly. He should also require all his appointees to publicly declare their assets.

The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), an anti-corruption group, urged Mr Tinubu to publicly declare his assets in line with Paragraph 11 of Part I of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution as a way of committing to the genuine fresh beginning he promised Nigerians.

Mr Tinubu himself has in the past faced corruption allegations surrounding his sources of wealth and assets that he declared.

The Goodluck Jonathan administration prosecuted him in 2011 for violating the code of conduct for public officers while he was governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007.

However, the Code of Conduct Tribunal dismissed the charges on technical grounds.

Also, Dapo Apara, a Nigerian chartered accountant, accused Mr Tinubu, Alpha-Beta, and Akin Doherty, a former commissioner in Lagos state, of money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, and other corrupt actions in 2020.

Mr Bawa, the suspended EFCC chairman, revealed in 2020 that the commission was looking into Mr Tinubu’s assets declaration.

The announcement was followed by a Peoples Gazette report on how the EFCC wrote the Code of Conduct Bureau to demand copies of Mr Tinubu’s asset disclosure.

The letter was signed by Mr Bawa when he headed the Lagos zonal head before his appointment to head the agency in 2021.

His son, Seyi Tinubu, has also been linked with the purchase of a property in London, the United Kingdom, for about $11 million.

The property was formerly owned by another Nigerian, Kola Aluko, who had earlier been declared wanted by the EFCC for money laundering, according to Bloomberg.

“It will be very difficult for Tinubu to fight corruption,” Inibehe Effiong, a lawyer and rights activist, said. “I do not expect Tinubu to fight corruption. Those who expect him to fight corruption are living in a dreamland. Did Tinubu campaign on corruption? I do not expect him to fight corruption.”

He added: “Beyond Tinubu as a person, some of his associates and political associates are also deeply immersed in corruption, how will he be able to deal with that?  We just have to wait and see, but regarding corruption, I think it is a lost course.”

Partisan weaponisation of anti-graft bodies

Anti-graft agencies have, perhaps unwittingly, sustained a reputation of being a tool for partisan political ends under successive administrations, which analysts said already resulted in notable failures in addressing the country’s corruption problem.

By convention, the ICPC and EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies are created and appointed by the presidency and subjected to the confirmation of the Senate. But analysts say this structure has led to the perception of the leaders of these institutions as instruments of state coercion and the victimisation of rivals.

Many Nigerians want the president to hand off the appointment of chairpersons of anti-corruption institutions. And as well want the process for the appointment of the chairman to be subjected to civil service rules. 

Nigerians have also called for a change in the status quo, in which board members are appointed based on political appointments from the six geopolitical zones, usually members of the ruling party. Nigerians now want the composition to include members from fairly non-partisan bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), and others.

A former senator, Ikechukwu Obiorah, had said the anti-corruption agencies should be granted total independence. According to him, for a more effective war against corruption in Nigeria, a sitting President should lose the power to appoint heads of agencies.

The ex-Anambra South lawmaker said the membership should be made ex officio, or by virtual of their standing in the society, with nominations for professional bodies and unions.

Shortly after taking office, former President Buhari took the fight against corruption to the opposition party, the PDP, by arresting Sambo Dasuki, the then-immediate-past National Security Adviser (NSA) who served in ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration; others include Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh. 

Many Nigerians considered the move a witch-hunt against the opposition as the former national chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, had said sins are forgiven when politicians join the party.

In erstwhile administrations, especially under Mr Obasanjo, the EFCC went after the president’s perceived political opponents, including those who were previously friends with the president and then fell out over political differences.

Mr Suraju of HEDA also urged the current government to also go ahead with prosecuting officials at the previous APC administration as it was done to the PDP.

“We need to stand up and ensure that some of the things that the APC government did to the PDP who left office, should be compelled to also do the same to the APC who left in the immediate past government. And in states where we are having a change of government and change of party we should encourage those governments to also take the necessary steps of ensuring that their predecessors are brought to book for any offence they must have committed.

Dust the books

Nigeria has enough laws in place to successfully combat corruption. However, enforcing the laws is a challenge.

The previous administration had launched key initiatives that promoted governance they included the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), the Petroleum Industry Act, the Open Treasury Portal, the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), and ‘Whistle Blowing’ policy, and the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) and others.

All these initiatives were laudable for deepening good governance and service delivery. However, the past administration was unable to ensure the implementation of some of the policies.

Nigerians now expect President Tinubu to pass laws to back up the whistle-blower policy and the Open Treasury Portal to address grey areas and make them more binding and effective.

Agora Policy, an Abuja-based think-tank, had in its report ahead of the coming of the new administration urged the President to “ensure that the zeal for anticorruption is sustained and that the prevailing measures are fit for purpose, and further strengthened and institutionalised,” 

Hands-off approach to policymaking in judiciary

The Nigerian Constitution empowered the president to make appointments into positions available in the judiciary upon confirmation by the Senate. But, oftentimes, presidents have made the appointments with overt political considerations.

Mr Effiong said this was no longer sustainable and urged Mr Tinubu to avoid interference with the judiciary and allow the sector to function without external influence, intimidation, or inducement. 

“The executive arm of government should not interfere with the work of judges,” he said. “They should also not be seen meddling with the decisions of the court or trying to influence or compromise judges.”

Mr Effiong said the poor state of judicial infrastructure has been among the critical challenges impeding the institution’s independence and efficiency.

“The budget for the judiciary should be in place. The executive should support the increment of the budget of the judiciary. We should see federal and state courtroom facilities renovated, and the judges should be well-equipped as well as the welfare of judicial officials should be properly attended to in line with the law,” he said.

Whereas the National Assembly has the power to earmark all federal resources, the president still has to first trigger priorities for government spending, which often failed to include projects that could bolster administrative reform in the judiciary.

“The backlogs of cases in the Supreme Court have not been attended to for some years and have to be addressed.  We have to find a way to decongest cases across the federal court system,” the Lagos-based lawyer said. “If we have a government that is serious about fundamental reforms, some matters should be taken outside the… jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and only serious, constitutional matters should go to the supreme court.”

Finally, Mr Effiong recommended judicial appointments based on proven character and competence, as against the current procedure that prioritises ethnic affiliations over merit. “I also expect credible, competent members of the bench and the bar with proven track records and integrity should be appointed to the judiciary. 

“Judiciary officials’ appointments should not be based on ethnicity, partisanship, or favouritism, it should be based squarely on merit. That will go a long way to guarantee an efficient judicial system,” Mr Effiong said. “The most important for me is independence, allowing judges and heads of the court to discharge their duties without any inducement or interference by the executive.”