“The Battle to Kill EFCC, ICPC and NFIU: How 16 Governors Lost at the Supreme Court” — Ekene Aninze, Esq.

In 2023, 16 State Governors, through their Attorneys-General, approached the Supreme Court to help them scrap EFCC, ICPC and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).

What triggered the action?

On January 5, 2023, the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), introduced a guideline.

The guideline mandated a total ban on cash withdrawals from all public accounts across the federal, state and local government tiers.

With the guideline, no public official was permitted to withdraw cash from a government vault or bank counter except with the express waiver of the President.

The State Governments saw this as a direct infringement on their autonomy.

So, in February 2023, the Attorney-General of Kogi State and other States approached the Supreme Court to nullify the laws establishing these anti-graft agencies.

According to the States, the National Assembly cannot legislate on the management, administration or alleged misappropriation of state and local government public funds, which fall strictly within the oversight of State Houses of Assembly.

Relying heavily on Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution, the States also argued that the EFCC Act was a direct byproduct of an international treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.

And that because the National Assembly failed to get a majority of State Houses of Assembly to ratify the law before passage, the EFCC Act was unconstitutional and inapplicable to the States.

They concluded by saying that the NFIU guidelines disrupted state operations and illegally interfered with local governance structures.

On the other hand, the Attorney-General of the Federation argued that public funds must be protected under federal anti-corruption laws to prevent State Governors from unilaterally draining public coffers.

He also drew the attention of the Supreme Court to a previous precedent in Attorney-General of Ondo v. Attorney-General of the Federation, which had already affirmed that corruption is a nationwide menace that the National Assembly has the absolute power to curb through centralized agencies.

On November 15, 2024, a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Uwani Musa Abba-Aji, delivered a unanimous judgment that knocked the arguments of the States off.

According to the Supreme Court, the EFCC Act, ICPC Act and NFIU Act are all constitutional, and that the bodies possess full powers to investigate and prosecute financial crimes at all levels of government, whether federal, state or local.

The court held that the National Assembly has the ultimate power to enact anti-graft legislation.

And that the EFCC Act grew out of an international convention, which the National Assembly was fully competent to pass into law without State Assembly approvals.

The court concluded by saying that while States can pass local laws, no State legislation can compete with, contradict or invalidate Acts of the National Assembly, and that any local statute designed to frustrate federal anti-graft agencies is unconstitutional.

In the end, the case was dismissed.

That was how State Governors failed to get the Supreme Court to scrap EFCC, ICPC and NFIU.

If they had succeeded, that case would have ended the lifespan of the anti-graft bodies as we know them.

The case is cited today as Attorney-General of Kogi State v. Attorney-General of the Federation, SC/CV/178/2023.

I am Ekene Aninze, Esq.