Financial crime prosecution, legal certainty and exigency of policy: case of Nigeria's EFCC
Abstract
Purpose
In its fight against money laundering involving politically exposed persons (PEPs), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has the dual mandate of maintaining equilibrium between two fundamental, but sharply contradictory objectives: establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and responding to the policy imperative of nipping corruption in the bud through a pro-active involvement in preventative measures. This paper contends that as a result of the tension between these two divergent ends, the agency has found itself the spider in a cobweb of legalism designed by its adversaries to stymie its operations. Furthermore, and as a matter of priority, the paper calls for a major rethink of the appropriateness of criminal jurisdiction in the prosecution of financial crimes in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Case study and textual analysis of literature.
Findings
Civil jurisdiction of extracting the proceeds of the criminal activities of PEPs provides a better mode of deterrence than any criminal sanction could hope to achieve.
Originality/value
Creative in deciphering a major root cause of the ineffectiveness of criminal sanction as an anti-corruption weapon.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Messrs David Lewis, Head of UK Government policy/strategy committee on money laundering at the Treasury, and DCI Jon Benton, of the Metropolitan Police Financial Crimes Unit for their insights during the author's separate interviews with them for this paper. Having said that, it behoves the author to state categorically that the views expressed in this work are entirely of the author.
Citation
Oke, T. (2014), "Financial crime prosecution, legal certainty and exigency of policy: case of Nigeria's EFCC", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 56-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-06-2013-0044
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited