Headline

16 States Carpet EFCC Amid Lingering N776bn Fraud Cases

Published

8 months ago

October 12, 2024

Editor

Facts have emerged on why no fewer than 16 state governments may have instituted a suit at the Supreme Court to challenge the legality of the laws that established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit.

The suit, marked SC/CV/178/2023, was originally filed by the Kogi State Government through its Attorney General, Muiz Abdullahi SAN. However, 15 other states joined as co-plaintiffs on Tuesday.

The states are Ondo, Edo, Oyo, Ogun, Nassarawa, Kebbi, Katsina, Sokoto, Jigawa, Enugu, Benue, Anambra, Plateau, Cross River, and Niger.

The states contended that the formation of the agencies breached constitutional provisions. They argued that the constitution required the endorsement of a majority of the states’ Houses of Assembly for the EFCC Act, but this was not done before the agency was created.

After the arguments, a seven-member panel of apex court justices, led by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, fixed October 22 for hearing and granted leave for consolidation of the case on Tuesday.

However, it was learnt that the suit may not be unconnected with the protracted legal battle between a former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, and the anti-graft agency over allegations of financial misappropriation to the tune of N110bn. The EFCC also recently reopened N772bn money laundering cases against 13 other former governors and ministers.

The EFCC in January 2024 reopened the cases, including that of the diverted $2.2bn that involved two former Ekiti State governors, Kayode Fayemi and Ayo Fayose; former Zamfara State Governor and current Minister, Bello Matawalle; two former Enugu State governors, Chimaroke Nnamani and Sullivan Chime; former Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Adamu; and former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso.

Others are former Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili; former Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji; former Gombe State Governor, Danjuma Goje; former Sokoto State Governor, Aliyu Wamako; former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva; and former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido.

Speaking, the EFCC Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, said the legal actions against the commission were indicative of its effectiveness in fighting corruption.

He said, “As a matter of fact, the actions are coming based on what the commission is doing. If we were not doing our work and generating the necessary action against corrupt practices, the kind of concerted hostility the commission is experiencing would not arise. I think this is an appraisal of the work the commission is doing and its effectiveness.

“Whatever they are doing, there is no way it can stand. Yes, the matter is before the court, and the court is the only institution to adjudicate on the matter.”

But in response to enquiries made by The PUNCH, some of the states offered conflicting reasons for their involvement in the suit.

The Oyo State Commissioner of Information, Dotun Oyelade, told The PUNCH that the suit “was in line with what the state government had always imbibed in its legal system.”

Group seeks probe of N380m health agency contract
He said, “With respect to what might be the statutes of the EFCC, if legal lacunae are observed, it is not going to be business as usual, nor will it be a factor of which political party you belong to.”

But the Special Adviser on Media and Strategy to the Ogun State Governor, Mr Kayode Akinmade, said, “It is not true that we filed a suit to challenge the constitutionality of the EFCC. What we filed was a suit to challenge the constitutionality of some policies of the NFIU restricting the access of state governments to their money by for example limiting how much they withdraw in cash. We did not even join Kogi’s suit. We filed our own.”

The Cross River State Commissioner for Information, Erasmus Ekpang, also told The PUNCH that the state was not involved in the case despite being on the list.

He said, “What Cross River State joined was the previous suit instituted by the Kogi State Government against the National Financial Intelligence Unit, and it was done under the previous administration of Ben Ayade.”

According to him, the case was to challenge and determine whether the NFIU has the legal standing to investigate how local government funds are appropriated in a state.

The Plateau State Government also denied being involved in the suit, stating it had never called for the scrapping of the EFCC.

The state Commissioner for Information, Musa Ashoms, said, “We have not taken a position on the cancellation of the EFCC as a state. It is a creation of law, and we believe the law should be allowed to take its course on any matter in the country.”

The Nasarawa State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Labaran Magaji, declined comment on the matter.

Similarly, the Katsina State Commissioner of Information, Bala Salisu, told our correspondent that he wasn’t aware of the case.

He promised to get back to our correspondent when briefed. But as of the time of filing this report on Friday, he had yet to respond to inquiry.

Efforts to get a reaction from the Benue State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and Public Order, Fidelis Mynin, were unsuccessful as his phone rang out. Also, he did not respond to the text message sent to his cellphone as of the time of press.

When The PUNCH reached out to the Sokoto State Commissioner for Information, Sambo Danchadi, he did not answer calls or respond to text messages sent to him.

When contacted, the Edo State Commissioner of Communications, Chris Nehikhare, referred The PUNCH to the state Attorney General, Oluwole Osaze Uzzi. But the AG did not pick up calls made to his lines and did not respond to messages sent to him on WhatsApp.
PUNCH

Headline

Trouble Looms As Trump Gives Iran Two Weeks To Avoid US Airstrikes

Published

8 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could make a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that he was not inclined to stop Israel attacking Iran because it was “winning,” and was dismissive of European efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.

He added that the aim was to “see whether or not people come to their senses.”

Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks” because there was a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran.

Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran, with the European powers rushing to talks with Tehran.

But his latest remarks indicated Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress towards dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump meanwhile dismissed talks that European powers Britain, France, Germany and the EU had with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva on Friday.

Europe ‘didn’t help’

“They didn’t help,” he said as he arrived in Morristown, New Jersey, ahead of a fundraising dinner at his nearby golf club.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the talks in Geneva that Tehran would not resume negotiations with the United States until Israel stopped its attacks.

But Trump was reluctant.

“It’s very hard to make that request right now,” Trump said.

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody’s losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”

Trump meanwhile doubled down on his claims that Iran is weeks away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb, despite divisions in his own administration about the intelligence behind his assessment.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, said in a report in March that Iran was not close to having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said of Gabbard, a longtime opponent of US foreign intervention whom Trump tapped to coordinate the sprawling US spy community.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

AFP

Headline

Trump Orders Mass Layoffs At Voice Of America, Other US-funded Media

Published

8 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday ordered mass layoffs at Voice of America and other government-funded media, moving ahead with gutting the outlets despite legal disputes and criticism that US adversaries will benefit.

Kari Lake, a fervent Trump supporter named to a senior role at the US Agency for Global Media, said the notices were a “long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”

Lake said in a statement that she would work with the State Department and Congress to “make sure the telling of America’s story is modernized, effective and aligned with America’s foreign policy.”

Trump issued an order in March that froze Voice of America (VOA) for the first time since it was founded in 1942.

Termination notices were sent to 639 employees on Friday, after previous offers of voluntary departures and dismissals of contractors.

Some 1,400 positions have been eliminated, with only 250 remaining, Lake said.

Voice of America layoffs included journalists from its Persian service who had briefly been brought back to work after Israel attacked Iran a week ago.

Employees have filed a lawsuit challenging Lake’s actions, which come even though Congress had already appropriated funding.

The mass firing decision “spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds the US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” the three plaintiffs wrote in a statement.

“Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the information space with anti-American propaganda. Do not cede this ground by silencing America’s voice,” said the three complainants, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the “decimation of US broadcasting leaves authoritarian propaganda unchecked by US backed independent media and is a perversion of the law and congressional intent.”

“It is a dark day for the truth,” she wrote on X.

Trump frequently attacks media outlets and has scoffed at the so-called editorial firewall at VOA which prevents the government from intervening in its coverage, something he at times has considered too critical of his administration.

One outlet preserved by the mass cuts has been Radio Marti, which broadcasts into Cuba and enjoys support from anti-communist Cuban-American Republican lawmakers.

Other outlets funded by the US government have included Radio Free Asia, which was set up to provide news to Asian countries without a free press and is now operating in a limited capacity.

Radio Free Europe, formed with a similar mission for Soviet bloc nations during the Cold War, has survived thanks to support from the Czech government.

AFP

Headline

Thousands Protest In Tehran Against Israel

Published

13 hours ago

June 20, 2025

Editor

Thousands of people joined a protest against Israel in the Iranian capital on Friday after weekly prayers, chanting slogans in support of their leaders, images on state television showed.

“This is the Friday of the Iranian nation’s solidarity and resistance across the country,” the news anchor said.

Footage showed protesters in Tehran holding up photographs of commanders killed since the start of the war with Israel, while others waved the flags of Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“I will sacrifice my life for my leader,” read a protester’s banner, a reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to state television, protests took place in other cities around the country, including in Tabriz in northwestern Iran and Shiraz in the south.

AFP