By TINA TIMOTHY

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has said that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was not required by law to keep the erstwhile governor of Anambra state, Chief Willie Obiano, in long detention over alleged ‘mismanagement of Anambra’s billions’.

Intersociety stated this in a statement issued in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, on Monday, March 21, 2022, and signed by its Principal Officers; Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chinwe Umeche Esquire and Chidinma Udegbunam Esquire.

The statement reads: “It is the position of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) 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.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and its Act deals with 'non-violent criminal and illicit activity or activities involving public officers, former public officers, individual citizens and body corporate, including social enterprises.

“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.

“Instances include money laundering or stashing away of public funds, onshore or offshoreacquisition 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.

“In the case of former Gov Obiano, therefore, EFCC has no legal business holding him in long detention as doing so diminishes the EFCC’s competence and marks 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.

“It is a settled law in Nigeria that no offense 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 incompetence, crude, draconian and lawless anti graft agency.”

The group however disagrees with both Governor Chukwuma Soludo and former Senator Victor Umeh on their perceived impression which ‘suggests that Obiano is a saintly former Anambra governor.’ Instead they advised Soludo to ‘watch his back’ and ‘learn a big lesson’ from the travail of Obiano, which they described as ‘self-inflicted’ and ‘self-invited”.