[elombah.com] November 22, & 23 2011 witnessed a few cases that are important to note, in that they feature some typical Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC performances. Please read how the EFCC iilegally abused the rights of five possibly innocent Nigerians. Their names are: Peter, Tosin Lawal, Engineer Francis and Hamisu.
CASE NO. 1: The first case in our illustration is the case of Peter. He is an old merchant more or less. He has been in the business of supplying kerosene with tankers for the past 20years.
He has a customer he had been dealing for the past 15 years. About 3 years ago, Peter took supplies of Kerosene from this customer of his. Normally, he would pay for the supply after selling the good. Due to economic problems, Peter could not sell a set of the supplies he took from this customer. As a result, Peter did not have the money to pay back within the time agreed.
Peter offered to give a piece of land to his customer as payment unless she would give him more time to raise the money. She refused. She took Peter to a civil court. After the trial, she lost. She then went to the EFCC, paid huge money to the officials and they arrested Peter and charged him with the offense of obtaining by trick. Since the past 3 months, Peter had been locked up in the EFCC cell. But his case came up today for bail.
Before the bail hearing, the judge observed that this case had first come up as a criminal case by the police. But the complainant was told by the court that it was a civil case, where-upon she went to a civil court and lost there. The judge asked the EFCC lawyer why they should bring the case again after the same court had dismissed it. The judge checked to confirm that it was the same charge as before, the same parties as before, the same court. The EFCC lawyer couldn't answer the questions. She began to shake. She was confused. The judge asked her if she knew that the same case had been to the court and was dismissed. She apparently didn't know that you can't re-arrest a person and charge him with the same offense after it was dismissed. She never heard of the term double jeopardy or res judicata. The judge was stunned. People were laughing in the court.
CASE NO. 2: In this case a complainant had written a petition against someone that sold a land to him about 3 years ago. In his petition, he claimed that the man was a fraudster who used gangsters to terrorize people in Lagos and who used land deals to dupe unsuspecting public. And that he had paid him for land and he had duped him.
The complainant happened to be a friend to one of the EFCC lawyers and the complainant probably greased the hands of the EFCC staff.
They moved and arrested this supposed fraudster, a sixty-five year old father of 8 and grandfather of 11 children. He has been in custody for the past 2 weeks. When they arrested him, they told him they would take him to court the next day. But on that date he was not taken to court. It turned out that the EFCC lawyer who went to file the case had conspired with a low-level official of the court to hide the case file and to not properly process the file. As a result, the case was not ready to be assigned to any judge. By not assigning the case, the accused was to stay in detention custody for 2 weeks as a way to please the complainant.
The case finally came up today amidst so much drama. To everybody's surprise, the EFCC lawyer, Ben Obi announced that he was ready for trial even before the man's bail application could be heard. But this was a bluff. The defense lawyers called that bluff. Ben Obi was asked to indicate how many witnesses he had. He said he had 6, but the judge drew his attention to the fact that the charge document actually indicated 7 witnesses. Also the judge drew his attention to the fact that he had listed himself as one of the witnesses or did he mean a different Ben Obi. He apologized for all these.
The judge asked him if he had his witnesses ready. He proudly told the judge that two of his witnesses were in court ready to proceed. The court asked all the witnesses to step out as usual. Ben Obi was then asked to call his first witness. He called the complainant. During the cross-examination, the petitioner admitted that he had been in possession of the property he bought since the past 3 years and has been collecting rent all that time. They asked him about the things he wrote in his petition. He said he wrote them out of annoyance. When they finished with that witness, the court asked Ben Obi to call his second witness. He told the court that the second witness had left the court. The judge, knowing that Ben Obi was lying when he said he had two witnesses ready, asked him to state the name of the witness who was ready, but suddenly disappeared. Ben Obi could not state the name of the witness. The judge had to caution him in very strong language. The same Ben Obi was now begging for more time. Everybody was laughing in court.
CASE NO. 3; This the case of the poor man they call Engineer Francis. After 5 months in detention and after lying to him repeatedly that they would release him, they took him to court.
There is a little more background to this 60-year old retired army engineer. When Mrs. Farida Waziri visited the cell last two weeks, he was asked to state his case. When he tried to say that he merely introduced a borrower, Mrs. Waziri chided him, calling him a pocket lawyer, teasing him about his diminutive physique and adjudging him guilty of the offense of introducing somebody to somebody.
Two days after Mrs. Waziri's visit, a team of EFCC officials from SERVICOM unit came to the cell and met Francis. After examining the case file for Engineer Francis, thEy sympathized with him and told him that he would be released from detention immediately. This was actually on the 5th of November. But nothing happened.
On the 17th of November, Francis was served with charges, showing that the EFCC filed a criminal charge against him on the 7th of October. The documents showed that his trial date was November 22 . so Francis had less than a week to find a lawyer and prepare for trial. And he had to that from detention cell.
Another bizarre dimension: the charging document clearly showed Ikeja High Court. Francis strggled and found a lawyer. All hands were on deck to help him here. The lawyer came and collected the court document and prepared bail application.
On the date of trial, the lawyer went to the court stated in the document. But EFCC had played their classic trick, the court stated in the document was not the real court. While Francis' lawyer was in Ikeja High Court, EFCC took Francis to Igbosere High Court, which was the real venue. The whole calculation of the EFCC was to find a way to further delay Francis in detention. They knew that without Francis' lawyer in the court when the case was called, the court would adjourn the case and Francis would return to the cell.
The court has rescheduled the case for November 29. Hopefully, the bail would be heard on that day and Francis would test freedom after more than 5 months of being locked up for nothing.
CASE NO. 4: This is the case of Mrs. Tosin Lawal, which has been reported, or more appropriately distorted, in the newspapers. This is a nursing mother who was arrested and has remained in detention for the past 50 days by the EFCC.
She worked for a bank. The bank filed a complaint against her with the police. The police arrested her. The police set an administrative bail for her. While on that bail the EFCC arrested her and her husband. Essentially, her husband was arrested by the EFCC because he happened to be her husband. He was eventually released.
Meanwhile, the police have filed charges against Mrs. Lawal. At the hearing, the police could not produce Lawal because the EFCC has her. He court last week ordered the police to produce her. The police has been begging the EFCC to release her. The matter is coming up on Wednesday, November 23, the question is whether the EFCC would cooperate and make this woman available or will EFCC just be EFCC.
The question can now be asked why EFCC should dabble into a case that was already in the hands of the police. The answer is always the same two answers – Corruption and Incompetence. These cases are opportunity for EFCC officials to extort bribe money. They do everything to jump into cases. They don't conduct any investigations. It is all about money. They make money either from the complainant or the suspect or from both of them.
CASE NO. 5: This is the case of the man called Hamisu. You may recall this man. He was one of the few who tried to speak the night Mrs. Waziri came to the cell. Hamisu's fault was only that he performed the same task he has done for his boss for the past many years. He ran an errand for his boss.
Hamisu works with his boss, Danjuma. Danjuma sent him to his customer to pick a draft for him. Hamisu picked the draft from the customer and handed it over to his boss. A disagreement arose between the boss and the customer. The customer called in the EFCC.
There was no dispute about the draft. Hamisu's boss admitted that he received the draft. There should be no further involvement for Hamisu, the errand boy. But the EFCC has been holding Hamisu (and his boss) for the past one month. As far as EFCC is concerned, the constitution does not apply to Hamisu. Even though two weeks ago, the SERVICOM unit of the EFCC had assured Hamisu that he had no case and that he would be released, the poor guy is still here without any hope in sight. The obstacle in the way of Hamisu's freedom is that there is one man in EFCC called Bamanga. Bamanga bears personal animosity toward Danjuma, Hamisu's boss. Bamanga is taking it out on both Danjuma and Hamisu.
Even though Bamamga knows that there is absolutely no way he could formulate a theory of responsibility for Hamisu, he continues to hold him in custody without any legal basis. Poor Hamisu, his blood pressure has been going up and up. After his last visit to the clinic, the doctor told him that anything could happen to him anytime. If the poor boy dies in EFCC custody, they will just cover it up to protect Mrs. Waziri's position.
Written by Ephraim Emeka Ugwuonye
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
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