Date Published: 10/08/09

Letter to the Editor

Slow prosecution of Corruption Cases: Between EFCC and the Courts, Who is to Be Blamed?

There has been much hullabaloo about the slow dispensation of justice in respect of corruption cases being prosecuted by the Economic and Financials Crimes Commission, EFCC. In as much as there is every reason to show concern over the slow pace of the various trials involving public officers, there is the need to situate properly where the problem lies.

The pertinent question that should be asked is that in the last one year of the Mrs. Farida Waziri led EFCC, has much been achieved in terms of the will-power and the zeal to ensure genuine prosecution? Has the Commission dilly-dallied on crime prevention? How about ensuring proper investigation, making arrest and charging the cases to court when the crime is already committed? With all intent and purposes, there is nobody who will want to genuinely disagree with me that the EFCC boss is found wanting in this regards.

In just about one year in office, the achievements of Mrs. Waziri speak for itself. Over N160 Billion of supposedly looted money from the system has been recovered courtesy of Waziri. Over 40 high profile cases have been charged to court and in all, over 75 convictions have been secured, according to the information made available by the anti-graft agency.

I am beginning to understand that the problem basically is that of adjudication, which is entirely the business of the judiciary. The EFCC can not be the prosecutor as well as the Judge. Once the case is before the chief Judge who has the discretionary powers to assign it to any court of his choice, the Commission’s Counsel, just as the Counsel of the defendants, is at the mercy of the Judge.

Why would petty thieves be sent to jail within six months while big rogues are allowed to use technicalities to drag on their cases for as long as four years with the full connivance of the judicial officers? I read the story of the former Director- General of The NYSC, Brig. Gen. Yusuf Bomoi who accused his former domestic staff of stealing about N150Million of his money. In less than six months of the aide’s prosecution, the “unlucky” young man has been sentenced to cool off in jail for the next 18 months. Why can’t such feat be seen to be recorded in these high profile cases?

One would have wished that legal technicalities and or unnecessary clogs are not positioned before a seemingly clear case that ought not to take six months to prosecute. But Nigeria is a funny country where as they say, “anything goes”. I remember Senator Arthur Nzeribe of the famous Association of Better Nigeria, ABN, who once said that to every body, there is a price. The next question, at this juncture is: do the judges also have prices? In trying to answer this question, I would have said NO. No, because the judiciary is said to be the last hope of the common man. But I think I am handicapped.

We have seen in recent times how the likes of Justice Egbo-Egbo have bastardised the judiciary. We have seen how the National Judicial Council, NJC, has wielded the big stick against erring judicial officers especially those who attended to election cases..  

But what most Nigerians have closed their eyes to, is that the corruption in the judiciary goes beyond the Election Tribunals. The real rot commences in the Registry of the Nigeria judiciary. A lawyer shared his experience and said that the Process Unit Staff as they are called are responsible for missing content in a litigant’s file, contrary dates of adjournments.  Apart from extorting a litigant by claiming that there is no file to house his writ of summons and other originating documents, these junior staffs willingly tell litigants which judge is open to receiving bribes. Of course, defence Counsels know better, the tricks of the game.

As Che Oyimnatumba in his article of August 13, 2008 titled: Nigerian Judiciary: A benchmark of corruption, posted on the Judiciary website posited that another source of corruption in the Nigerian judiciary is the lawyers. “A good number of lawyers in a bid to get ahead encourage the corrupt practices by these junior staff as they shunt due process and compromise the judiciary staff into inserting documents into a file out of time; some go to the extent of informing litigants that there is need to pay certain amount of fees to facilitate favourable judgment. When their matter is not assigned to an amiable judge, they re-file and grease palms in order to get their process before the “appropriate” judge.   

He contended that if the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, umbrella body for all lawyers in Nigeria, is serious about the fight against corruption in Nigeria, there is need for her to start from members of the bar, rather than these crocodile tears over the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. “The Judiciary Service Commission should clamp down on any judge fingered in corrupt practices. As a deterrent, any judge whose name is whispered in questionable deal, should be placed on suspension and in innocent, the accuser should be disrobed. If a lawyer and if a litigant, he should be prosecuted for obstructing justice.

Yours Sincerely

Anthony Afeh,

Abuja