 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested former Govnov Anambra state willy-o-biano hours after the inauguration of his successor. And in preparation for the 2023 elections, Northeast Business Forum buys PDP presidential candidate a form. And that's former vice president at Tikku, at Bubakar. Well, this is plus politics, Diane Mary Annacombe. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has arrested the immediate past governor of Anambra state willy-o-biano at the Maritala Muhammad International Airport. In Lagos, Obeano had reportedly been on the watch list of the EFCC following the commission's letter to the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service on November 15, 2021, requesting immigration to place Obeano on a watch list and inform it at any time of his traveling out of the country from any of the international airports and other points of entry and exit. It was learned that Obeano was arrested for allegedly mismanaging over 17 billion Naira Parry Club refund and security votes. Well, joining us to discuss this is Obeena Chiku and Elvis Asya here, their both legal practitioners. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me on the program. I'm very tempted to call you a surname, Asya, but I tried not to. Well, I'm going to start with you, Barisa Chiku. For a governor, Obeano, who has been a very low-key governor, hardly on TV, never really was on the media. He had very many spokesperson, was hardly in the news, per se. One would not necessarily have thought that he would be on the watch list of the EFCC. I mean, again, he just handed over to his predecessor, and many people are asking questions as to where he was going. But when you heard the story or the news, the breaking news that he was being arrested by the EFCC, what were your thoughts? Okay. First, thank you for having me once more. Somehow, some of us were startled when we heard that breaking news that the immediate past governor of Anambra State was arrested by the EFCC. But again, to me, it has always been the same thing. It's the same story. I can tell you, after the 1990s, from 1999 to 2003, immediately after that regime passed, EFCC also swooped in and arrested quite a number of them. But to me, the question or the aspect that I would like to look at is that how many of them have EFCC been able to secure conviction? I am not really happy or enthused or enthusiastic or I don't know how to describe it, that he was arrested given the fact that it has always been the same thing. And I think there's this saying that you can't do something and expect different results. So that didn't jump out for me, but just that one can conclude that it was expected because that has been the modus operandi of EFCC. Interesting. Elvis, a lot of people are saying that this is that usual witch hunt of those who are not in the ruling party. Some are making cases that if he were to be in the ruling party, this would have not necessarily been the case. And people made jokes even on social media saying if he had known immediately after handing over he would have declared for the ruling party and maybe all would have been well. But looking at it, this is the only time that this man has been stripped of his immunity. And what better time to swoop in if there be any credence to the charges that have been brought or the allegations by the EFCC? What are your thoughts? The second thing is that first, it's important for us to know that now that he has been stripped of his immunity that's granted by the Constitution, the EFCC has the right, other security agencies has the powers to arrest him and prosecute him if they find him wanting with respect to any particular crime that was committed during the course of his tenure. Yes, it is true that in Nigeria, once you are in the ruling party, your sins are likely to be forgiven, but that doesn't give other people immunity, so to say, from being arrested and prosecuted in accordance with the law. I think what is important is whether or not there is something that the EFCC has evidence, the EFCC has evidence against him, whether they have what it takes to really succeed in an action in criminal charges against him. I think that's what is really important. At the end of the day, we all will have some sentimental reasons why we want somebody to go scot-free. I mean, let us start from somewhere. We all know that we know in this country that the governors had under the canopy of immunity to commit all sorts of evil, particularly financial misappropriation. I'm not saying that Obi-Wan is guilty, but I'm saying that the EFCC has the rights and the powers to go after him. In fact, I'm even surprised. What's surprising for me actually is the fact that we wait till the tenure is over to do proper investigation. The law in this country since 2002, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, is that the governor or even the president can be investigated. So what would have expected that as of now, the EFCC will have sufficient evidence. They have all the, because I've dealt with them with respect to clients, they have what it takes to get information on financial misappropriation by governors and political office holders while they're in office. So what would have expected that by now, they have already done sufficient work because the last I heard is that, oh, they're not going to disclose what is being arrested for because they are still investigating. That's a very bad signal. It just shows that perhaps they haven't really done their work. They had eight years to investigate this man. They had eight years to investigate any other governor, president, or the deputies or vice president of the country. So by now, what would have thought that they already have information. Before you arrest somebody, you should have something. You're arresting somebody for a crime. You need to say exactly the reason why you're arresting somebody. If you are saying after almost 24 hours that you cannot disclose the reason why somebody has been arrested, that sense, rather, that sense of bashing out there. And it might confirm what some people are saying that perhaps is because it's not in the opposition, in the ruling party that he's been arrested the way he has been arrested. What Vice-Chico said earlier on that he's not necessarily surprised at this because this seems to be the modus operandi of the EFCC and sometimes even the DSS. We hear about these arrests. We hear it spread across the front pages of our newspapers, but then he's talking about the follow-through here. So I'm going to pose that question to you. Why is there a difficulty in the follow-through? I know you've talked about the fact that these investigations needed to have started earlier on, but here we are. Things are not done the way you expect it to be done. But why do you think that the EFCC finds it very difficult to follow through with these cases and have the time we never see the end of it? Well, the reason in my view is obvious. A lot of these things are politically motivated. Yes, there's genuine reason for going after political office orders. Those who enjoy the community-wide office. But in most cases, these investigations are politically motivated and the proper things are not done. The investigation is suddenly done. And when charges are filed, you see that most of these charges are, which is why for so many years, a lot of governors have been arrested and not much has been done in terms of conviction. Because at the end of the day, political motivation is actually the reason behind some of these investigations. And secondly, the EFCC, I mean the point earlier, that you are arresting somebody who has been in office for eight years, you arrested him yesterday and today you are still saying that, oh, you cannot disclose the reason why he has been arrested. That clearly shows that you have nothing. That clearly shows that you have done your homework. The EFCC and other security agencies learn to do their homework properly before people are arrested. Otherwise, you are going to continue to have the same issue of people being let go by the court because of short investigation by the police. I think we need to find a way to properly train our security personnel on investigation. But with the EFCC, I tell people that perhaps it's not really because they don't have the capacity because I've dealt with them. I know that they have access to practically all your financial information. I know that they have access to everything that they want to get. So sometimes you wonder why this doesn't happen. I think it's again political influence and the fact that those who have government states for years with security goals they are embezzled and other monies they are taking without proper accountability. They are able to play along with the system and prevent these prosecutions from seeing the light of the day. Let me come back to you by Satyaku just to pick up from where he stopped. He's talking about the follow-through issue here and he's made a case and I'm wondering if he's saying that most half the time these things are politically motivated. And then one looks at the EFCC we're always clamoring for strong institutions which were yet to even scratch the surface in this part of the world. But how does that affect the EFCC and its ability to carry out its job to the later? Again, we say that our security agencies are able to back but they're not able to bite meaning that they may be at the wings and caprices of whoever is running the government. So how can we take seriously these allegations of money laundering or let's say stealing from public coffers or, for example, in the case of Governor Obianno, they've talked about mismanagement of funds and especially the Paris Club fund and the security votes which nobody ever knows how much it is. Where does that leave the EFCC and all of this? Okay, to me, I think that I would say that EFCC does not have the capacity to deal with this type of crime because over time we have seen not one, not three, not 10, not 15. It has become like a normal thing for EFCC once a public officer exhausts or they turn on a spare. The next thing EFCC puts on him and is possibly arrested, kept for a few days, taken to court, granted bail, the politician comes back to the society and never allows the society to rest with the enormous money that they have paid for or fleeced from the government treasury. To me, I will conclude that EFCC because, like I said before, you can continue to do the same thing. You can continue to do the same thing. You wait until when they leave office and you're not invited and you start to investigate. That's not how it should be done. To me, I would think that if Nigerians are serious, if the legislators, the executives are serious, we should take away these powers from EFCC and send these powers to try political or public office holders before a special court, call it a tribunal. But there has to be a law enforcement. Law enforcement has to do the arresting. So when you say the powers be taken away from EFCC, they're not the courts, of course. You're talking about tribunal of sorts. But law enforcement does have a role to play and that's why the EFCC was created in the first place, right? I know what I'm saying. If you take away, if you remove EFCC, it does appear that Nigerian has relegated Nigerian police to the background. When it comes to politically motivated crimes, it does appear to me that the Nigerian police has been relegated to the background. In the same vein, we can allow, after all, at the beginning of eternal life, the politician is made to take an oath, is made to appear before the Code of Conduct where he signs respective forms. Why can't we also make it? Have a law that stipulates that immediately the tenor, in fact, few days to the end of the tenor, the same politician goes back to the Code of Conduct and tries to look at the papers and look at all that has transpired and see once there's any infraction, once there's any infraction, the public coffee soda is taken to a special court. Then from the special court that will be like a tribunal that must not exceed 90 days or 120 days. So that this issue of EFCC sweeping on a politician, arresting, talking the politician or the immediate past public coffee soda, and a few months... Who's going to chair that tribunal? Who's going to cease at that tribunal? Because we're complaining about shortages. The motion should propound that the person that must be the judge or the chairman of that tribunal must have the same qualification with that high court of Nigeria. So that the issue of political office that be free with public funds can be done within 90 days or 120 days. If we're able to do that and the politician is convicted within 90 days or 120 days, that will serve as a deterrent to others. It will make the others to sit up. People will not know that once you get into serve that as soon as you leave office within 90 days or 120 days, all issues pertaining to money laundering and beef ring of public coffers will be laid to rest instead of these macabre towns that we are witnessing. Because I can tell you, at the end of the day, the immediate past government of Anambra State give it in the next one, two months. To be granted bail, of course, it's a bailable offence. The next thing he will start to junk it all over the world, enjoying whatever, and again, hire lawyers and ensure that the judicial process is somehow delayed. Look at the government of Abia State, the former government of Abia State. He's still there, he's serving in the Senate, he's still getting more money from Nigeria. This is a man that was accused, that was laid to have been fired from the coffers of Abia State. Today, he's the minority leader in the Senate and he continues to enjoy much more money than the ordinary Nigerians that elected him to serve when he did not serve. And according to what AFCC said that at the end of the day, he ended up beefering with Abia State firms. The same thing, not only Abia State, the same thing is across all the states in Nigeria. You arrange them a few months after they are granted bail, they go back to the election position, get into the Senate, get some somewhat suffering from the Senate. And from the Senate, they start to end their pension from the state government. The pension is still running. The same government ends pension from the state. The same government ends money from the Senate. He has enough money to frustrate the judiciary. One of the conditions of bail is that the person granted bail must not impute investigation. He must not interfere with trial. But with the kind of money that we are putting in their hands, it depends on the person in charge of trial. So you are saying that the judiciary is complicit because from what you are saying, you are saying that the judiciary is complicit because you are talking about financial inducements here, meaning that the bench, we are talking about the whole judiciary. No, I am not talking about it. No, I didn't say that he would use the money to induce judiciary. So what exactly do you mean by implication? He uses the money to hire 20-30 senior advocates of Nigeria, bring them to court, bring more lawyers to court. As the senior advocate is coming, he comes with two more. At the end of the day, he has 150 lawyers that are standing, that are defending him. Once a judge makes a pronouncement, they file an interlocutor application at the court of appeal. By the time that they go through that interlocutor application at the court of appeal, the matter is delayed for another one, two years. They come back again, assuming they appeal rules against them. Rules against them. They come back again and start with the process. Once a judge makes another action or takes another action or the other party files or argues on a particular issue, they go back to appeal from appeal court to supreme court. By the time they come back, seven, eight, ten, or more years. Okay. Let me go back to Elvis. Because he has money. And sorry, why is that still going on? He continues to end his pension from the state government. Even as Obia now is there, even if he spends six months there or one year, the pension from Anambra Stee, which he created for himself, will still be running. What kind of system is that? That a man that is alleged to have been fired or fleece the money belonging to the people is given more money by government. Okay. We'll come back to talk about that. We'll come back to talk about that. Let's put a pin there. Let's put a pin there. Let me come to Elvis. Elvis, Baristatikou seems to be giving us very interesting points, but I want us to focus our attention on the EFCC as a body. We keep calling these bodies independent, like even those that have appendages of independence, like INEC, like the ICPC. These are supposed to be bodies that are independent, but then we go back to looking at how these bodies were created, how the heads of these bodies are picked. It all plays into the independence or the true independence of these bodies. So how do we, because we started this conversation by talking about doing the same thing all the time and getting the same results. So how do we rewire the system of fighting corruption and financial crimes in the country within the polity? And of course, before we go down to the government, because the government still doesn't mean that we should not talk about that. But how do we rewire the system, including the body that is settled with the responsibility of making sure that these people are tried and if they are found guilty, thrown behind bars? How do we look at rewiring that system? Because the challenge we have with the FCC is the fact that, yes, the law is structured in such a way as to give it some level of independence. So that investigations can be properly done without the influence of the political actors in the system. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have regards for building institutions in this country. We were in this country or we were in this country when somebody was heading the FCC for years without the Senate approver. A national assembly approving it in line with the law. Actions like that have been over the years destroyed the independence of the FCC under security agencies. Such that today, in a way, they are unable to those who appoint them. Typically, the law is that when the president appoints the head of the FCC, it's supposed to be subject to ratification by the national assembly. But like I said, with respect to the former FCC chairman, we had a situation where the president kept him on for years without national assemblies approver. We need to go back to building institutions. When this government came to power in 2015, a lot of people were saying that they were going to fight corruption. I had always known that that wasn't going to be possible because you don't fight corruption by power or by the strength of the president. You need to create institutions that are independent. Institutions that have capacity. Institutions that have men and women that are work trained to do this investigation without being influenced. I've dealt with the FCC on a few occasions. You cannot, for example, put the kind of lawyers, the kind of people that they have to do the investigation of persecution at the FCC. You can't put it side by side with the lawyers that are available to those who are taking so much money from the system. Just like my left friend said, to those who can afford to get as many senior advocates and the best lawyers in the country. So you need to find a way to train people in the FCC, not just in the FCC, but other security agencies so that their jobs can be done. You say it's interesting that these ideas are thrown out and I'm not thinking that you're the first person that has come up with this idea, but why do you think that our leaders have never paid attention to this or even tried to see how independent these guys can be? What do you think is at the core of the project? I think the core of the problem is that it's become a culture of impunity. The next person is looking for an opportunity to be a competitor from crime or from bad behaviour by influencing the system. It's become a culture. So we need to find a way to address that culture because those who are presidents, governors, the FCC chairman, other security agencies, they are part of their Nigerians. And so we have all learned this, we have all incorporated this habit of allowing just one person to determine what happens. We don't have that institutional culture that can engender an effective response in terms of investigation and prosecution. So it's more like a cultural thing. I mean, some of those, we have politicians who have stoning money, for example. When they go to their villages, they are celebrated. People lie on the street, people wait for hours to see them because they have money to throw around. It's a cultural thing. And we have to go back to that because there's no amount of law. Even if you are made a law today to create a special tribunal or to appoint a system who is still corrupted because of a culture that has become... The culture of the people eventually determines how they respond to issues, how they respond to, for example, the issue of investigation. If society is so, you know, not accommodating some of these actions by political officials and other people who are flouting the laws across the country, then you will see that reflected in the way the investigation is done, in the way the prosecution is done, in the way the court even handles it. So it's a systemic problem and we need to address that system rather than just picking up one or two issues. Unfortunately, time is not our friend, but I want to say thank you, Baris Dalbina and Elvis Asya. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break. When we come back, the Northeast Business Forum has purchased the PDP presidential form for the former vice president at Tikua Bulbaca. We'll talk about this after the break.