Note: The piece is intended to achieve the following:

·        Inspite of the initial cynicism about her capability to lead the action against corruption in Nigeria, recent media reports about her activities since she assumed office in the last one year have indicated that she must have been grossly underrated and misunderstood.

·        Securing over 65 convictions and recovering over N50 billion in about one year with all the constraints she has been talking about is no mean feat. This she has been able to achieve under strict adherence to rule of law which was never the case during the regime of her predecessor.

·        This shows that if given all the needed support especially from the judiciary, defence counsel and all stakeholders, Nigeria will be marching towards a zero corruption mark.

·        Her new initiatives on non-conviction based assets forfeiture bill, Anti-Corruption Revolution Campaign , ANCOR, (intended to mobilise the people to buy in and own the war against graft) as well as her persistent clamour for special courts on corruption should be commended and supported by all stakeholders.

FARIDA WAZIRI’S SCORECARD AS EFCC CHAIRMAN

1.     Secured over 65 convictions in the past twelve months. These represent about a third of all convictions secured since the establishment of the Commission in 2002.

2.     Made recoveries of over N50 billion in the last 12 months.

3.     Developed and about to deploy EagleClaw a software that will change the face of fighting cybercrime and 419 in Nigeria and the whole world. Project EagleClaw is a software that sniffs out all fraudulent e-mails and monitors them with the option of shutting down such mails. This means that when fully deployed, all 419 e-mails emanating from Nigeria will either be monitored or be shut down.

4.     Investigated and filed several fresh high profile cases which include cases of former Governors and Ministers. Some of this high profile cases have been those of Michael Botmang, Boni Haruna, Rasheed Ladoja, Bode George, Femi Fani-Kayode, Babalola Borisade, Kenny Martins, Prince Ibrahim Demuje, Roland Iyayi, Nyeson Wike (Chief of Staff Rivers State), Eider George (Aviation Fund), 4 Senior Managers of Zenith Bank, Billionaire Indian Businessman Patrick Fernandez, the 13 Phillipinos Case (Already sentenced to 65 years) and the 6 Ghanaians case,(for oil bunkering). The case of Nasir El-Rufai has also been filed and the Commission will soon commence the process of his extradition. Others include Rowland Owan and six Commissioners of NERC, the REA case involving a serving Senator, 3 Reps members, Perm Sec. and other top officials of REA, 5 top officilas of UBEC and a Lebanese contractor. Also 3 top officials of Transcorp have been arraigned in court over a fraud of N15billion. Iam confident that in the coming weeks, several other high profile matters will  be filed in court.

5.     Instituted an aggressive programme of sensitization of the public and whistle blowing to ensure their buy-in into the anti corruption fight (ANCOR).

6.     Championed the enactment of a non-conviction based assets forfeiture legislation to compliment the present conviction-based regime. The Bill is on its way to the National Assembly for passage into law.

7.     Repositioned the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit to make it more proactive and responsive to strategic intelligence.

8.     Deployed the GoAML and GoCase softwares that were stagnated. This threw up the N3.6billion money laudering case against some Zenith bank officials.

9.     Improved Nigeria’s Transparency rating and direct foreign investment inflows. Nigeria’s Transparency International (TI) rating moved from 142 in 2006 to 121 in 2008

10.            Briefed PriceWaterHouseCoopers to do diagnostic review of the EFCC and recommend administrative structures.

11.            Completed a salary survey and made recommendation for a new pay structure.

12.            Facilitated the first Management Retreat of the Commission, which threw up useful recommendations.

13.            Set up the Monitoring and Intelligence Units. These units have ensured pro-active gathering of information to facilitate investigations even in the absence of petitions

14.            Renegotiated the expired MoU with Microsoft to cover a wider spectrum of issues. The new MoU was signed recently.

15.            Leveraged on the fresh MoU and brought together a coalition of parties involving Microsoft, the African Development Bank, Western Union, Yahoo! Google, Coca-Cola, etc to support the fight against Internet Fraud. The first West African Summit to be hosted by the Commission and funded by this Coalition will hold in September 2009.

16.            Initiated, with the Federal Ministry of Education, the process for the introduction of anti-corruption curriculum at all levels of education in Nigeria.