Ogun not challenging EFCC’s legality, says Attorney-General

The Ogun State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Oluwasina Ogungbade, SAN, has decried the continued media reports suggesting that the state is challenging the legality of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at the Supreme Court.

Ogungbade, in a statement on Monday, wondered why some sections of the media continued to include the state in the list of those challenging the EFCC in court.

The Commissioner stated, “We don’t have a suit against the EFCC. We have never filed any action against the EFCC challenging its constitutionality. We already issued a statement to that effect last week clarifying that we never had any suit attacking the EFCC’s constitutionality and that we did not join the suit filed at the Supreme Court by some other states in that regard.

“We respect the decisions of the states that have filed such a challenge,

as it is their right to approach the court. That is allowed in a democracy and in a federation.

“But the documents we have filed are public records open to scrutiny, so I am surprised that some media outlets are still running reports that include and mention Ogun State as one of the states challenging the EFCC’s existence when that is not the case.

“I hope that such outlets will be guided by this clarification, as well as our statement from last week, to present the correct position.”

The Ogun State government had earlier issued a rebuttal in a statement by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Strategy, Kayode Akinmade.

According to the statement, the constitutionality of the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission had already been determined by the Supreme Court, and Ogun State considers discussions on the issue closed.

The Ogun State government stated that it had no factual reason or recent developments to reopen the question of the EFCC’s constitutionality.

It added that as a federating unit with its own law enforcement agencies, it had no desire to undermine the Federal Government’s law and order objectives.

Providing clarification on the actual case filed by Ogun State in court, Ogungbade said, “The case Ogun State has filed (SC/CV/912/2024) does not attack the constitutionality of the EFCC.

“The suit seeks to invalidate the NFIU Guidelines and Advisory issued in January 2023, which interfere with the economic and governance interests of Ogun State and its local governments.

“That’s what we filed. We are not challenging the constitutionality of the EFCC in this case,” Ogungbade stated.

It would be recalled that, at the last count, about five states had made applications to the Supreme Court to withdraw from the case initially filed by the Kogi State Government challenging the existence of the EFCC, while the Benue State Governor actually suspended the State’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice for unilaterally joining the case without the prior approval of the state governor.