ABUJA -CHAIRMAN of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu yesterday said that corruption amongst law enforcement officers was a major problem responsible for failure of the Federal Government's anti-corruption campaign, even with whopping sum of over N250billion being expended by government on the said officers.
He also blamed insufficiency of courts and judges for the congestions of cases in court, particularly the prosecution of economic and financial crime related cases, adding that, “bank frauds are on the increase, forex abuses and manipulations are still the stock of many banks, 419 still looms large, money laundering from corrupt proceeds is still visible and apparent.”
According to him, the commission is prosecuting over 100 cases in court, while about 300 other cases are at various stages of investigation.
Speaking at the on-going Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) national conference in Abuja on the topic “Problems Associated with Enforcement of Economic Crimes,” Mallam Ribadu said, “the principal reason for the failure of our law enforcement agencies is corruption. In fact, it went so bad that in some cases, law enforcement officers were found to be the principal perpetrators of the crimes.”
“Invariably, there was no law, because those that are supposed to enforce the law became the worst culprits of breaking the law. This was quite worrisome because as the custodians of the law and order, they were supposed to lead by example and be above board. Apparently, the failure on the part of law enforcement agencies and the eventual breakdown of law and order grossly affected the administration and delivery of justice and led to loss of confidence by the public in justice administration.”
Further he said “as at today, we have over 500,000 law enforcement personnel working in various law enforcement agencies, while Nigeria spends averagely N250billion on law enforcement agencies. Despite the large number of law enforcement workforce, nothing seems to be happening.”
“The congestion of cases in our courts and slow pace of court proceedings occasioned by insufficient numbers of courts and judges and the manual recording system take their share of blame in the problems associated with the enforcement of our laws particularly the prosecution of economic and financial crimes. This had hampered speedy and timely prosecution of cases.”
