RAMON OLADIMEJI writes that last Friday’s inaugural speech by the new President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), suggesting
that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission should be stripped of its prosecutorial power has further fuelled the undercurrent of suspicion or mistrust
that exists between the EFCC and Nigerian senior lawyers
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria’s foremost anti-corruption agency, does not trust the Nigerian Bar Association, the body of all
lawyers in the country.
For its poor record of conviction of high-profile treasury looters since its creation in 2003, the EFCC has remained the butt of public ridicule, and the
agency’s current acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, prefers to blame lawyers for the agency’s failure.
The EFCC believes, as has been voiced on many occasions by Magu, that lawyers are the ones aiding treasury looters to evade justice by exploiting the loopholes
in the nation’s laws to frustrate the trials of the looters.
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