A former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Olisa Agbakoba, has charged the newly sworn-in Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi to restrict the powers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to only the investigations of alleged corrupt Nigerians.
Agbakoba, in a statement on Monday, said the EFCC should not take up the duty of prosecution pending the establishment of a new national prosecution agency.
He also said a key reform should include a complete overhaul and decentralization of the Nigerian police force.
“There are pressing tasks to be carried out urgently by the new Attorney General of the Federation. Major reforms of the criminal justice system with particular reference to the utter confusion in the duplicated work of our law enforcement agencies in particular EFCC and ICPC are urgently needed. Also, there is a need to unbundle EFCC and restrict them to investigation only while a new National Prosecution Agency ought to be established,” he said on Monday, in a post on X platform, formally known as Twitter.
He also called on Mr. Fagbemi to address the issues of some of the country’s outdated laws, which he considered as urgently needed.
Citing the case of Rwanda, Mr. Agbakogba said the East African nation modified 1000 laws.
“Another key reform would be a completely decentralised Police Force at the local state and Federal levels. A major revamp of our outdated laws is urgently needed to follow the Rwanda example that modified 1000 laws. Last but not least the AGF must work on Speed of Justice. It’s a crying shame it takes upwards of 15 years to conclude cases from the High Court to the Supreme Court.
“Finally but not exhausted is to create sector-specific dispute resolution Agencies to free up the utterly cluttered dockets of the regular courts.
“The other very important task before the Attorney General will be the unnecessary and wholly inefficient matter of over-centralization of our superior courts. There is no better time than now to hack down the highly centralized Court systems in Nigeria. The AGF is invited to consider major constitutional amendments to create a system of Federal and State Courts. State Courts ought to have exclusive jurisdiction over matters related to them.
“This is also the case for Federal Courts whose Jurisdiction must be limited to Federal causes. This will free up the Clutter at the Supreme Court and make it the Policy Court it ought to be in the first place.
“We have a brilliant Attorney General in Lateef Fagbemi SAN. I am convinced that this will be a simple task for him. He is not only a very good colleague but also someone in whom I have the highest confidence regarding his abilities,” he wrote.
