20 Oct 2008 |
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Case For A Corruption Court In Nigeria. As expected there has been some furore in the country over recent remarks by the EFCC Chairperson, Chief. Mrs. Farida Waziri (AIG rtd) to the effect that there is no evidence on her table to prosecute Obasanjo and some former State Governors who were branded corrupt by the Ribadu led EFCC. However unexpectedly I received calls from some readers demanding an explanation for this statement from Farida. I could not help but wonder since when I was appointed her spokesperson. One of the callers could not even hide his mischievous intentions. Bellow is the conversation that ensued between him and I. Caller: What’s going on in this country? Me: What’s going on? Caller: I don’t understand what your sister is doing anymore. Me: Which of my sisters; and what has she done? Caller: I mean Farida; is she not your kinsman? Me: Ah ha. But Farida is a woman, so call her my ‘kinswoman’ instead if you wish. But tell me what she has done this time. Has she arrested a sitting Governor? Caller: She said OBJ and 31 former governors have no case to answer. Me: Did she say that or the press reported so? Sometimes these reporters can twist things. What I read is that she said there is no evidence on her table to prosecute successfully. So the press may have quoted her wrongly. She has said so herself that she was quoted out of context. Caller: But the EFCC told us that 31 former governors are corrupt Me: Not the EFCC (under Waziri). It was Ribadu who said that. Recall that when Ribadu concocted that evil list for political propaganda, most of us cried foul. It is obvious that he did not do his homework before rushing to the press to blackmail those governors in order to frustrate their political ambitions or intimidate them to support Obasanjo’s third term. Caller: So let Farida prosecute them now. Me: That is what she is saying; that there are no case files at all and the few that exist are empty. No hard evidence to make a good case before a law court. Do you want her to fabricate evidence? I remember she raised this alarm about empty files in the very first month of her stay in EFCC. Where were you then? I think Ribadu is still alive, he should come forward and controvert what Farida is saying then we can take on her. Let Ribadu bring out the evidence he gathered against the 31 ex-governors, and then we will know Farida is lying. Some of us saw the narcissism in what Ribadu was doing long ago but we were branded anti-(anti-corruption) agents. The truth is coming out now. Caller: Your sister cannot be wrong can she? Me: Look I started opposing Ribadu’s tactics long before the Yar’Adua regime came on board. At that time there was no Farida on the horizon. So face the facts and leave the issue of my sister aside. I suggest Ribadu should be invited by the EFCC to explain the absence of evidence on the people who featured on the list he paraded as people not fit to hold public office. Remember that Ribadu was not sacked the next day these governors lost immunity. Why did he not swoop on them with all the ‘evidence’ he had against them? Ibrahim Larmode who took over in acting capacity and who had worked closely with Ribadu, could not swoop on them either. Now you want to blame Farida? Caller: But Farida should not have said there is no evidence against the governors. What of if tomorrow she finds evidence, takes an ex-governor to court and a defence lawyer takes her to task on that statement? Me: Well, if I heard her well, she did not say there is no evidence out there but that there is none on her table at present, so if she finds evidence tomorrow, nothing can stop her from using that evidence. Caller: Are you suggesting the ex-governors are clean? Me: Not at all. You and I may suspect that they must have stolen government money. But you can’t convict any criminal on the weight of public suspicion without evidence. So what the EFCC needs to do is to continue their investigations and charge as many as they could find evidence to court. Some may have covered their tracks well. Remember what Ribadu said concerning Peter Odili during an interview with Elendu reports? That the man is very smart and that he investigated him but found no evidence! So you could imagine how Ribadu could call somebody a criminal with one mouth and use the same mouth to say there is no evidence against that person. We should not expect Farida, with her experience, to behave like that. Caller: What about OBJ. No case as well? Me: In fact it is even easier to believe her on OBJ than the ex-governors, because before the advent of this administration, the EFCC was not investigating OBJ. In fact Ribadu once told everybody that OBJ is a saint. So what evidence did you expect Farida to use against OBJ? We must separate public sentiments and speculations from matters of Law. Farida is a lawyer too and knows very well what it takes to drag someone to court on charges of stealing. Caller: Where do we go from here? Me: You see, the House of Representatives have indicted Obasanjo over the Power Projects during his regime. The report of the Power probe is a good raw material for EFCC to start with. Once the house adopts that report and EFCC is invited to take over, I can assure you that OBJ will be investigated and most hopefully charged to court. Caller: How long shall we continue to wait? Me: That is the problem with us. We are too impatient. We want people arrested today and convicted tomorrow. We want jungle justice. But the wheel of justice turns rather very slowly especially in Nigeria. We must reorient our mindset and allow institutional structures to function within the law without shortcuts. It may take ten years to prosecute one case but the important thing is to see justice done. This is why I support Farida’s call for a special court to handle corruption cases. If the government can establish a special Ministry for the Niger Delta, in response to crisis in the area, I don’t see why they cannot set up a special court to tackle the monster of corruption in the polity. Caller: I still believe this government is not eager to jail past governors. Me: Some Nigerians seem to be more eager to hear that an ex-governor is dragged to court than all the other cases EFCC is prosecuting as if corruption stops at the Governors’ table. As I talk to you the chief of staff of a serving Governor is in court over corruption. These are the people used by serving Governors to loot public funds. And that is why sometimes it is difficult to link these acts directly to the Governors. So as more of these people are made to face the music, others will be weary of being used by their Governors and corruption will reduce. Immunity will no longer be a shield to the governors in the real sense of it. So, to answer your question, I can say that I have heard this complaint before, but it lacks substance because as I talk to you, out of the so-called 31 ex-governors, about 5 regained immunity before Farida took over at EFCC, while about 9 are already in court, that leaves roughly only 17 (prosecutable?) ex-governors who are yet to be dragged to court for lack of enough evidence. But people keep sensationalising the matter by saying 31corrupt ex-governors are roaming the street free. This isn’t true. And once a matter is in court, EFCC is just a party to the case and they cannot rush the judges to convict their suspects without the full process of the law. Lets wait and see where these cases will end.
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