By Fola Bhadmus

The chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede should remember one fact that public office often encourages its occupants to forget: tomorrow is undefeated.

Today, he is chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. He has investigators at his command, official vehicles at his disposal, access to intelligence and the authority to summon, question, arrest and prosecute citizens.

His statements attract headlines. His decisions can disrupt businesses, freeze transactions and place individuals under the unforgiving spotlight of public suspicion. But tomorrow will come.

One day, another person will sit in his office. His portraits will be removed, his aides reassigned and his instructions preserved only in old files. The authority that presently surrounds him will belong to somebody else.

It is with that future in mind that Olukoyede should reconsider the appearance created by the EFCC’s continuing pursuit of businesswoman Aisha Achimugu.

No one is suggesting that Achimugu should be beyond investigation. Being wealthy is not immunity. Neither private business nor social prominence should protect a person from answering legitimate questions about financial transactions.

But an investigation should look like an investigation. It should not look like obsession.

It should not appear to be a contest between the prestige of an institution and the survival of one citizen.

It should certainly not give the impression that the EFCC chairman has made the defeat of a particular woman a personal test of authority.

Why Does This Case Feel Different?

Nigeria has witnessed corruption allegations involving serving officials, former governors, ministers, legislators, contractors and politically exposed persons.

Some cases have moved slowly for years. Some defendants have crossed from one political party to another and appeared to acquire a mysterious immunity from urgency. Others continue to occupy positions of influence while their files gather dust.

Yet the pursuit of Achimugu has appeared unusually intense. The public sees repeated enforcement actions, extensive publicity and what her supporters describe as a relentless effort to damage her finances, reputation and business interests.

That contrast naturally produces suspicion. Why does a private businesswoman appear to attract more institutional passion than many people who directly controlled public resources? Why has her case assumed the tone of a national emergency?

Why does the commission appear determined not only to investigate her, but also to ensure that she is publicly perceived through the most damaging possible interpretation of every allegation?

Perhaps the EFCC has convincing answers. If so, it should provide them through evidence and transparent legal proceedings. What it should not do is behave as though questioning its proportionality amounts to opposition to the anti-corruption campaign.

The EFCC is not Nigeria, and its chairman is not the law.

An Appeal That Should Not Be Dismissed

Aisha Achimugu’s public appeal was striking because it presented the conflict not merely as a legal dispute but as an existential struggle.

She suggested that her life, her children, her businesses and her investments were under threat. She alleged that the commission’s treatment of her had crossed the line from investigation into persecution.

Those claims remain allegations. They must be evaluated, not blindly accepted. But a public institution with extraordinary coercive power should be disturbed when a citizen expresses such fear. The proper response is not to intensify the pressure or ridicule her distress.

The proper response is to demonstrate, with documentation and disciplined conduct, that every action has been lawful, necessary and proportionate.

Instead, the apparent fixation has strengthened the belief that there may be more to the matter than the commission is disclosing.

Persecution is difficult to prove because institutions rarely admit to it. There will be no official letter saying, “We have decided to torment this person.”

It is usually detected through patterns. A level of scrutiny not applied to comparable individuals. A refusal to de-escalate after legal compliance has been secured. Repeated public exposure that seems designed to destroy reputation.

Actions whose punitive effect exceeds their investigative necessity. An unwillingness to accept that an accused person has a right to challenge the commission without becoming its enemy.

No single act may prove persecution. The total pattern, however, may create an inference that cannot simply be laughed away.

Emotional Intelligence as Power Condition

A chairman, who controls an enforcement institution must possess emotional intelligence. This is not fashionable corporate language. It is a constitutional necessity.

A public official without emotional restraint can cause enormous damage because he has the machinery of government available to express personal irritation.

If a businesswoman criticises the commission, the chairman must not respond like a wounded individual. If she approaches the courts, he must not interpret that as an insult. If she speaks publicly, he must not feel compelled to prove that the institution is more powerful than she is.

Of course the EFCC is more powerful than any private citizen. That is precisely why it must exercise restraint. A lion does not prove its strength by crushing everything that moves near it. The real test of power is the capacity to control it.

Olukoyede must therefore ask himself difficult questions. Has this case become too emotionally charged? Is the commission still seeking evidence, or is it now seeking surrender?

Would its approach be the same if Achimugu had never publicly challenged its methods? Have lawful disagreements been interpreted as personal disrespect? Is the chairman defending the law—or defending his pride?

Only he and his closest officials know the internal answer. But public power must also be judged by outward appearance, and the appearance here has become troubling.

The EFCC Chairmanship is Not a Throne

Every EFCC chairman eventually discovers that the office is a chair, not a throne. Nuhu Ribadu was once the face of Nigeria’s anti-corruption struggle. His tenure ended.

Farida Waziri succeeded him. Her tenure also ended. Ibrahim Lamorde occupied the office and later left it. Ibrahim Magu exercised enormous authority before his own dramatic removal from the centre of power.

Mohammed Umar Abba served in an acting capacity and left. Abdulrasheed Bawa was chairman until the political weather changed. He subsequently experienced the vulnerability that follows the loss of official protection.

None of these examples means that every former chairman committed wrongdoing. They demonstrate something more basic: those who command state institutions today can become subjects of state attention tomorrow. The transformation can be sudden.

Phones that were always answered become unreachable. Officials who once saluted become cautious. Public narratives change. The person who once issued instructions begins to depend upon lawyers, judges and constitutional protections. Olukoyede should study this history carefully.

The treatment he approves for an accused person today contributes to the institutional culture that may govern his own treatment in the future.

If he normalises excessive detention, he may one day face an agency that sees no problem with excessive detention. If he tolerates trial by media, he may someday discover how difficult it is to reclaim a reputation after the state has poisoned public opinion.

If he treats court orders as obstacles, he may later depend on a court order for his liberty. Tomorrow has a dry sense of humour.

Anti-Corruption Must Not Become Personal Warfare

Nigeria needs a strong EFCC. But a strong EFCC is not one that behaves without restraint. True institutional strength lies in consistency.

The commission must pursue friends and enemies by the same evidential standards. It must treat private citizens and politically exposed persons with equal seriousness. It must obey court orders it dislikes with the same enthusiasm with which it celebrates orders granted in its favour.

It must also understand that the anti-corruption mandate is not a blank cheque. The EFCC and its chairman have a lot to learn from the current DG of the DSS, Tosin Ajayi, in observing the rule of law in its operations and obeying court orders. He even sometimes admits sometimes that his men were wrong.

The chairman cannot allow the commission to become an instrument for settling private scores, satisfying political interests or establishing his personal reputation as an uncompromising enforcer.

An uncompromising man is not necessarily a just man. Sometimes he is merely a man who has stopped listening. Justice requires firmness, but it also requires proportion, patience and the capacity to recognise error.

Let the Evidence Speak

The solution is straightforward. If the EFCC has evidence that Achimugu committed financial crimes, it should present that evidence before a competent court. It should pursue the case professionally, allow her lawyers to respond and accept the eventual decisions of the judiciary.

It should avoid conducting the trial through press statements and public spectacle. It should not treat the economic destruction of her businesses as an unofficial sentence. It should not involve her family in matters for which they bear no legal responsibility. And it should not confuse her efforts to defend herself with proof that she has something to hide.

Achimugu is not entitled to immunity. But she is entitled to dignity, due process and equal protection under the law. Those principles apply to the popular and unpopular, the rich and poor, the powerful and vulnerable.

Indeed, constitutional rights become most important when the public has already been persuaded to dislike the person claiming them.

The Record Will Remain

Olukoyede may believe he is acting entirely in the national interest. That belief does not eliminate the possibility of excess. History is full of officials who sincerely believed that the importance of their mission justified the harshness of their methods.

But history rarely remembers their intentions alone. It remembers their conduct.

When Olukoyede eventually leaves office, Nigerians will assess more than the value of assets recovered during his tenure. They will consider whether the EFCC became more professional, more impartial and more respectful of constitutional limits under his leadership.

They will ask whether he pursued corruption or pursued individuals. They will ask whether he strengthened the institution or personalised it. They will ask whether he understood that an accused person remained a human being. The Achimugu matter will form part of that record.

The chairman should therefore resist the temptation to prove that the EFCC can break a citizen. Nobody doubts that the government possesses overwhelming power. The real question is whether those entrusted with that power possess the wisdom not to abuse it.

Aisha Achimugu’s guilt or innocence must be determined by evidence and law. Olukoyede’s legacy, however, will be determined by how he used power when he believed tomorrow was far away. Tomorrow is not far away. It is merely waiting for today to round off its time on the stage.