Fighting Kleptocracy in Democracy: An Assessment of the Efficacy of Anti-graft Policy Enforcement in Nigeria

Abstract

Financial crimes in Nigerian socio-political milieu have been more recurrent in contemporary times. The paper attempted to assess the performance of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from inception as a platform to evaluate the efficacy of anti-graft policy enforcement in Nigeria. It sought to establish whether the persistence of graft offences by Nigerian government officials was fallout of flaws emanating from censored operational space to restrict of the agency’s autonomy. Statutorily, it was mandated to prosecute all financial corruption in public offices, money laundering, advance-fee fraud and other offences related to these. However, in spite of these efforts, the war against corruption in every sphere is far from over. The paper anchored on the rational choice theory as analytical framework and employed the secondary source of data collection and analysis. Arguably, the EFCC operations have not been effective since the number of convictions for financial crimes in public offices is considered relatively low as against the level of the offense in the country. Again, the personnel of the agency were deemed to lack the required autonomy to address the intricacies of fighting the crime. Therefore, to reduce the spate of financial embezzlement, the Nigerian public laws should be amended to embrace a credible method of nominating candidates with good track records for political positions and public offices. In the same vein, more realistic autonomy should be given the operatives of the EFCC with a view to elicit more credible enforcement of the anti-graft law.