The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, yesterday dismissed claims that he was scheming for more powers to oversee the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
According to him, he does not need to tinker with the legal instrument establishing the EFCC, the Economic and Financial Crime (Establishment) Act 2004, to enable him to effectively do his job.
The minister, in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja by his media aide, Dr. Umar Gwandu, stated that by virtue of all legal instruments governing the conduct of governmental operations, he has
indisputable statutory powers to regulate the operations of the commission without recourse to any additional legislation.
He cited Section 43 of the EFCC Act that provides that “the Attorney-General of the Federation may make rules or regulations with respect to the exercise of any of the duties, functions or powers of the commission under this Act.”
He said: “For the avoidance of doubt, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice believes in the doctrines of separation of powers as an epitome character of the democratic administration and could not, therefore, meddle into the affairs of the legislature for megalomaniac sake.
“It is a global practice in democratic societies that the legislature may at their discretion and as deem fit, spearhead the amendment of existing legislations in order to accommodate certain exigencies occasioned by contemporary realities and the need to improve performance to achieve best practices without any prompting from external organs of the government.”
Malami said the priority of his office is to see to the effective execution of its statutory mandates of supervising all the parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Justice to make them function in the best interest of the public, which constitutional responsibility he is engaged by President Muhammadu Buhari to discharge.
