- A welcome development
The clamour by critical stakeholders, to dedicate special courts to try corruption cases got a boost from the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osibanjo, in his address to the nation on May 29, 2017, to mark Democracy Day and the second anniversary of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. In his speech, the Acting President said: “We are also re-equipping our prosecution teams, and part of the expected judicial reforms is to dedicate some specific courts to the trial of corruption cases.”
We support the intention of the Federal Government and urge it to move with speed, to actualise it.
If the promise is realised, it will gift proficiency to the dedicated courts, the prosecution and other critical officials. Indeed, it will help the judges presiding over the special courts to concentrate on their reading and research, to acquire greater expertise and skill. Also, the prosecutors, whether government employed or privately retained, will gain experience and develop the necessary expertise to confront the highly skilled professionals that those accused of corruption may use the ill-gotten resources acquired to retain.
Also, the courts and their officials will not be distracted by other competing cases, as the courts’ dockets will be filled only with criminal cases. Such dedicated courts will also help the country realise the intentions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2014, which provides that criminal cases should be heard on day to day basis, with minimal opportunities for adjournments. The present situation where criminal cases are bogged down by sometimes unreasonable adjournments, against the provisions of the ACJA, will end.
In the address, the Acting President correctly surmised public perception in the on-going war against corruption, when he said: “Many have said that the process is slow, and that is true, corruption has fought back with tremendous resources and our system of administration of justice has been quite slow. But the good news for justice is that our law does not recognise a time bar for the prosecution of corruption and other crimes, and we will not relent in our efforts to apprehend and bring corruption suspects to justice.”
The special courts will help bring the above intention to fruition, and all efforts should be geared to actualise it. The public frustration with the slow pace of corruption cases in the courts needs to be reversed. For instance, while former Governor James Ibori, who was governor between 1999 and 2007, had finished serving his sentence, after a trial in the United Kingdom for malfeasance committed within the period, public officials who served in the same period and have cases of corruption pending in our courts, are still at the preliminary stages of their trial.
The effect of corruption on the polity was also highlighted by the Acting President, and as he noted, the effect is so monumental that fighting the cankerworm should be a national emergency. We agree with Professor Osinbajo, when he said: “we believe that the looting of public resources that took place in the past few years has to be accounted for. Funds appropriated to build roads, railway lines, and power plants, and to equip the military, that had been stolen or diverted into private pockets, must be retrieved and the culprits brought to justice.”
While the Federal Government has rightly made the fight against corruption one of the three cardinal programmes of the Buhari administration, and has done so much to deal with the menace, a lot more needs to be done. Setting up a special court to fight corruption might just be the needed impetus to galvanise the war on graft.
