Falana faults critics of EFCC’s action over Fayose

From Tony Osauzo, Benin

HUMAN rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, yesterday condemned those criticising the freezing of the personal ac­count of Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose and the prosecution of the leadership of the Senate over allegation of forgery.

The legal luminary while speaking on the topic, “Limit of Executive Immunity” at the 60th birthday of the Secretary to the Edo State Government (SSG), Professor Julius Ihon­vebere, in Benin, said immunity for the president, vice president, governors and their deputies cannot be extended to certain criminal acts.

Falana who cited Supreme Court decisions to support his assertion, said the Supreme Court has also ruled that the Attorney General of the Fed­eration can direct the Attorney General of a state to investigate allegation of public money be­ing stolen in states even if the money belongs to the state as according to him, the Supreme Court held that the issue is about public fund that has been stolen.

“Apart from the President of our country, the vice president, the governors and their depu­ties, who are protected under immunity in Section 308 of the Constitution, others are now insisting that immunity be con­ferred on them. In particular the legislators in our country are asking for immunity but unfor­tunately, this is not the best time to make that request because right now, some of the leaders of the parliament in our country are standing trial for false decla­ration of assets, for forgery and conspiracy and some are even under threat of possible deporta­tion to the United States to stand trial for rape and other related offences.

“The governor of a state came and called Nigerians to join him to challenge the te­merity of the EFCC for seizing an account that is suspected to belong to the governor. The EFCC has quietly traced some stolen funds from Abuja and about N1.3 billion of that fund was traced to an account in Ekiti State with Zenith Bank. All that the EFCC did when it got infor­mation that this particular gov­ernor had surrounded the bank with armed gendarmes to force­fully remove whatever was left of that money from the account, the EFCC chairman sent an order to the bank seizing the account and the EFCC went to court to obtain an order to legiti­mise the seizing of the account. As soon as the governor learnt that the account had been fro­zen, he challenged that action of the EFCC on the ground that as a sitting governor, he enjoys immunity, absolute immunity from arrest, investigation and prosecution and argued that the action of the EFCC was illegal and unconstitutional.

“I referred the governor to the judgment of the Supreme Court involving Fawehinmi and the Inspector General of Police. In the judgment delivered by Justice Uwaifo (rtd), My lord subjected Section 308 of the Constitution to a serious intel­lectual scrutiny and concluded that the immunity conferred on the President and governors by the Constitution cannot be extended to investigations if they are alleged to have com­mitted criminal offences and of the three examples given by my lord, money found in an account of a governor was one of them, and he simply said as­suming that a sitting governor is accused of corrupt practices and money has been traced to an account which is suspected to have been stolen, if it is not investigated and the account cannot be touched, the money is likely to be moved and by the time he is out of office, the mon­ey would have disappeared.

“He went further that if a governor has his own car and that car killed somebody and you say that he cannot be inves­tigated, the car may have been sold before the expiration of the term of office of the governor, therefore investigation shall be conducted, the report may be sent to the House of Assembly for impeachment or the report may be kept until the governor will be out of office and he can be prosecuted.”