A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Joe Agi has reacted to claims that the judiciary is deliberately compromising the fight against corruption, stating the burden of blame should be laid squarely on Government investigators.
Agi said the current judicial structure in Nigeria is adequate to effectively fight the scourge of corruption, and also proposed a restructuring of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to make it more effective.
“My view is that the existing judicial structure can effectively deal with corruption cases. There is this unfortunate thing that people push the blame on the judiciary. In other climes, investigations are carried out before arrests are made. In Nigeria, arrests are made before investigation starts and is concluded.“What I’m saying is that very often the bogus claims of corruption we hear, are all just on paper and the journalists publish them that billions have been stolen. And people are expecting the thing to come out that way.“The bulk of the work should not be on the judiciary but on the investigators. If they do proper investigation and come up with hard facts before arrest, once you are caught red-handed, maybe you may not want to waste the time of the investigators to go to court.“You will just go there and agree. But when you have not done proper investigation and a lawyer has seen that you didn’t do a good job, you allow the court to find out.“Here, you see them charge people for 50-counts charge, 200 counts charge, it makes nonsense of the whole thing to keep duplicating charges just to create the impression that they are working.“People see the judiciary as an appendage of the executive to send anybody charged to jail. But the judiciary holds the scale, once you can’t prove your case, the man is allowed to go free.“The EFCC should be restructured to make it more effective. And another department should handle recovered assets.”
Legal experts have continuously advocated restricting all anti-corruption agencies in the country, as a means of perfecting government’s plans at fighting corruption.
The low level of convictions by the EFCC and other anti-graft agencies have been attributed to mainly executive and political interference which has always jeopardized investigation and prosecutions.
President Muhammadu Buhari who rode in on the mantra of his anti-corruption posture has been pegged down as heading for failure especially if the anti-corruption institutions are not strengthened in line with the dictates of the rule of law and the Constitution.
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