Justice Uwani Abba-Aji who read the lead judgment held that the states were completely wrong in holding that EFCC established by an act of the National Assembly was an illegal and unlawful body.
In the unanimous judgment of a 7-man panel of Justices of the court, the power of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, to arrest and prosecute offenders were affirmed.
The plaintiffs, in the suit, had argued that the Supreme Court, in Joseph Nwobike vs. Federal Republic of Nigeria, had held that it was a United Nations Convention against corruption that was reduced into the EFCC Establishment Act and that in enacting this law in 2004, the provision of Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, was not followed.
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The argument was that, in bringing a Convention into the Nigerian law, the provision of Section 12 must be complied with.
According to them, the provision of the Constitution necessitated the majority of the states’ Houses of Assembly agreeing to bring the convention in before passing the EFCC Act and others, which was allegedly never done.
The argument of the states in their present suit, was that the law, as enacted, could not be applied to states that never approved of it, in accordance with the provisions of the Nigerian constitution.