The judiciary is not the major problem with the anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria; the biggest headache is the MO of corruption investigations.
President Muhammadu Buhari at a town-hall meeting in Addis Ababa reportedly told Nigerians living in Ethiopia that the judiciary is his “main headache” on the current fight against corruption in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the newspapers did not offer much more on the nature of this headache, beyond the a reference to the three unfavourable judgements that Buhari obtained after tortuous trials duing his prior quests to become president.
It was therefore difficult to judge from the reports whether the president was railing against unduly long court processes, whether he was implying that the those unfavorable judgments he received were corruptly influenced, and indeed whether this is about the ongoing corruption cases being prosecuted in our courts.
Whatever may be the case, we quite agree with the President on one thing: there is popular perception that judicial officers are being corrupted in their efforts to dispense justice.
The justices are not alone; this perception pervades the entire public service space. It is a common experience that a good number of Nigerian service providers not only expect but also gently remind those they serve to part with some cash for the same services they are being paid to render.
Since our judges are service providers and they are also Nigerians, it would not be out of place to expect that there are bad eggs among them.
It is also not a peculiar Nigerian problem; ours is but a matter of degree. Is there a country in the world where a rotten judge has never been found and dealt with?
Today, I would like to discuss one other aspect of the Nigerian judiciary that attracts popular perception, which is a source of headache to men of conscience – the laws as they are dispensed to the rich and the poor in the courtroom.
To illustrate, we have read reports that a man who was caught selling weed under the Ojota bridge in Lagos State was sentenced to life imprisonment!
There was also the story of a young man who stole a governor’s phone and used it to defraud people of less than N5million and was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison without an option of fine.
On the other side of the social divide, we read of an ex-governor who was fined N3million for stealing N25billion from his state and, wait for it, the period he spent in detention was taken as sufficient punishment for the crime.
Still on this other side, a top civil servant was recently sentenced to serve six years in jail but was given an option to pay a fine of N750,000 for stealing N32.8 billion from the Police Pensions Fund.
I have a headache too, Mr. President. To lay people like us, all of this gives the impression that the rich and the poor are judged by different standards in the application of our criminal law.
Thinking about it is enough to give any moral being a headache.
If this is therefore the source of the President’s Addis Ababa headache, kudos. But we suspect, based on the newspaper reports, that the president is, as lawyers would say, adverting his mind to something else which the common man does not see as a headache – the issue of how election matters are handled in court and the suspicion that judgments can be or are being bought. If this were to be the case, we offer our sympathies as politicians cope with their court headaches.
We common people have a different kind of headache and cannot afford to travel abroad to advertise that we do. Leave us out of it.
We would like to see as our headache, the current war against corruption that our president is waging. The main headache as I see it is not the judiciary; the trouble is with the modus operandi of corruption investigations. Contrary to the government’s narrative that “corruption is fighting back,” following public and social media outcry on the tenor of investigations, specifically its human rights abuse dimension, the reality is that the quality of investigations of public officials who allegedly looted the state is not top class.
Corruption investigators should not be seen to be issuing bulletins or perceived to be authorizing leaks during a large-scale project such as recovering massive funds looted from the treasury by serving or former government officials. This is what Bishop Kukah likens to a hunter drumming and whistling in a bush where he is hoping to catch a monkey.
In civilised climes, such investigations are conducted quietly, unobtrusively and thoroughly and, when done, all confirmed collaborators are arrested at the same time and charged for multiple offences that lead to easy recoveries of stolen money. This will not give room for other culprits to try other methods of hiding their loot. None will be given the opportunity to jump into the APC ship where they hope to avoid prosecution. It will be impossible to negotiate with investigators to prepare a watery case that will lead to a slap-on-the-wrist judgement. Judges will not be presented with loopholes that smart lawyers can exploit to free those who are destroying the nation and help them escape justice.
Why do the DSS and the EFCC elect to do their work in this manner? My suspicion is that the federal investigators are merely trying to help the president by giving us the impression that the war on corruption is being fought vigorously. No worse strategy could have been contemplated.
Imagine what a difference it would have made to the image of the country – and the government – if 50 persons, for example, were to be arrested across the country in one day and charged to court for stealing a specified amount of money – after a thorough investigation! The present method is what my people liken to an impetuous farmer who breaks the yam while standing to harvest only to squat thereafter in a bid to carefully dig it out.
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