A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Wahab Shittu, has expressed concern over the trend of upheavals that have plagued the leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) since its inception.
This comes after Wednesday’s suspension of EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa by President Bola Tinubu. Bawa was preceded by four other similarly ousted EFCC chairman in either full or acting capacity, namely Nuhu Ribadu, Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Lamorde, and Ibrahim Magu.
“In terms of concern, it gives us a lot of concern [for] an office, an institution of that magnitude because the EFCC is not a local institution,” Shittu, who appeared on the Friday edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, stated.
“It’s an international institution because the war against corruption is of international dimension. The international community is interested in the subject of corruption in the way it is interested in the subject of terrorism.”
According to him, corruption and terrorism are issues of international concern, beyond local or domestic bodies.
Shittu argued that, in terms of perception by the international community, “when you have frequent changes in the leadership of an institution as important as EFCC, it sends negative signals that you don’t have stability here”.
He added that the implication is that the institution is not sufficiently strong enough to be able to withstand shocks, saying it should give Nigerians general concern.
Asked what may be responsible for the frequent changes in leadership, the senior advocate simply said, “The element of vested interests.”
The war against corruption, in his view, is not a “tea party”. Describing it as serious business, he argued that, if one were to identify a single militating factor in the way of the country’s developmental process and development strides, it is the factor of corruption and impunity.
