The kerfuffle among the major beneficiaries of the ongoing anti-corruption war of the Buhari administration over the directive issued by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, that judges handling corruption cases should conduct trials on daily basis, has once again thrown up the debate over the desirability or otherwise of the setting up of special courts.
The major beneficiaries are members of the bar. They are the ones falling over themselves to defend corrupt elements and smiling their ways to the banks. For once, I almost regretted not listening to one of my friends and colleagues in Jos who tried to suck me into reading law in the 80s. By now, I would have been among the much-sought-after SANs with my bank accounts bursting at the seams.
Although the argument put forward by those against the daily trials of corruption cases in the regular courts is that the judges would be overwhelmed and overworked, a colleague and I tried to read between the lines and jumped into the conclusion that daily trials meant quick dispensation of cases which lawyers are averse to. Prolonged trials mean more cash for them. It is the reason why they introduce all manner of legal technicalities to slow down the process. The judiciary, I keep saying, is like a vehicle without an accelerator… it moves at its own pace.
The CJN’s directive is as good as providing the accelerator and not many SANs would like it.
Now, let us take a look at the issue of setting up special courts for corruption cases that have overwhelmed the nation. As far back as 2012 when the corruption-friendly administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan was on overdrive, an argument erupted between him and the former CJN, Justice Maryam Aloma Mukhtar, over the establishment of the special courts to handle corruption cases. Jonathan spoke at the swearing-in of Justice Mukhtar, the first woman to occupy the seat.
He supported the idea in view of the congestions in the regular courts.
In his own tune, Jonathan called for the setting up of special courts to try to clean up the Augean Stables, which corruption cases have constituted in various courts across the length and breadth of the country since the reemergence of democratic dispensation in 1999. But the ex-CJN disagreed and put it to Mr. President that the normal courts were capable of handling the armada of corruption cases that litter Nigerian courts.
Jonathan and Justice Mukhtar were not the first duo to disagree on the way forward as far as the battle against the invidious crime is concerned.
Former chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri, and the ex-boss of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Justice Emmanuel Ayoola (rtd), openly disagreed on the same issue during their tenures. While Mrs. Farida Waziri canvassed for the establishment of special courts to try corrupt elements, Justice Emmanuel Ayoola believed that the regular courts were capable of tackling them.
Dyed-in-the wool democrats will argue from now till eternity that the worst democracy is better than the best military regime.
Incidentally, Nigerians have tasted the two dispensations and it is up to them to deliver their verdict. Nevertheless, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a product of the military system who knew that profligacy is a hallmark of democracy, hurriedly put in place the EFCC and the ICPC to checkmate the thieving wolves among the political class who would parade themselves in sheepskin. The wanton looting of public treasury during the Shagari regime, which Obasanjo midwifed in 1979, must have informed his decision to put the two anti-graft agencies in place… a kind of ogres or scarecrows on the farmland.
However, in spite of the intimidating presence of the agencies, corruption has blossomed. The two bodies have turned out to be the shadoofs that irrigate the crime, wittingly or unwittingly fertilized by the bar and the bench. Nigerians did not seem to know how desperate our situation had become as far as the corruption plague is concerned until the Buhari administration was thrown up by fate.
Nigeria has remained the envy of many developed and developing nations because of the riches, among them oil and gas, that nature has given it. But despite the abundant human, mineral resources and agricultural endowments as well as the quantum of oil money that have been funnelled into the nation’s coffers since 1999, the masses are rooted in abject poverty. All facets of socio-economic life have gone under: the citizens cannot afford decent meals, foot hospital bills and pay school fees of their children. Unemployment has been on the rise with corresponding increase in criminality like armed robbery, kidnapping and now, terrorism.
While assessing the performance of Nigeria’s anti-corruption efforts since the coming of EFCC and ICPC, the pioneer chairman of the latter body, Justice Mustapha Akanbi (rtd), declared in 2009 that the war against the monster had failed. Nigeria had lost huge funds to corruption before the emergence of EFCC and ICPC. According to the statistics released by the EFCC under Mrs. Waziri, Nigeria lost about $521 billion to corruption since independence.
It will not amount to an exaggeration to say that half of that colossal figure was recorded under the ICPC and EFCC’s watch.
To assist Nigeria in prosecuting the war against the invidious crime, some foreign donors queued behind the EFCC under its pioneer chairman, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and pumped huge funds into the system. These donors believed that the war against corruption could not be fought without enormous financial support from the government. However, the more the donations, the stronger corruption waxed in the land. Such financial prop-ups ceased when it appeared to the donors that Nigeria was waging a lost war… until lately.
It is now obvious that the country needs special courts to handle the endless corruption cases streaming into the regular courts on daily basis. The earlier the cases are resolved and all the stolen billions recovered, the better for everyone and the economy. Judges in regular courts are overloaded. Some are even too old to carry the heavy loads corruption comes along with. A desperate ailment should be given a desperate treatment. Corruption is certainly a desperate malady.
