Some lawyers, in this report by RAMON OLADIMEJI, predict the outcome of Buhari’s anti-graft war

Nigerians are familiar with the media funfair that often heralds the invitation and arraignment of suspected politically-exposed officials in court. But more often than not, at the end of the day, none of the suspects gets convicted and sentenced to a prison term.

Usually, after a few adjournments into the trial, the noise dies down and the case will drag for years till it gathers dust and is forgotten.

Two among the cases that fit such a profile are those of former governors Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State, which both started in 2007 but have yet to see the light of the day, nine years after.

In fact, there is a likelihood that Nnamani’s case may start afresh now that the trial judge, Justice Mohammed Yunusa, has been transferred from Lagos to the Enugu Division of the Federal High Court.

In the same class is the case of a former Managing Director of the defunct Bank PHB, Francis Atuche, whose trial has not even started seven years after it was filed in court.

Atuche’s case, which started in 2009, was last November adjourned till February 16, 2016 just for “mention” by Justice Saliu Saidu.

There is a common pattern by which all high profile corruption cases are frustrated. This familiar trend has been attributed to the various tactics deployed by defence lawyers in the name of the touted “constitutionally guaranteed right of an accused person to fair hearing.”

Of course, there are constitutional provisions and court rules that permit such indulgence. To stall and frustrate the trial of an accused person, every defence lawyer, who is worth his pay in Nigeria, knows what to do.

When everything else, including challenge of jurisdiction and stay of proceedings, has failed, defence lawyers would next express lack of confidence in the judge and ask that the case be transferred to another judge, who would start afresh.

This scenario played out just last week, when the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who is facing trial alongside the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and three others for alleged forgery, asked the trial judge, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, to withdraw from his case, citing likelihood of bias.

Saraki’s trial for alleged false assets declaration to the Code of Conduct Bureau has been stalled on account of Supreme Court’s order of stay of proceedings.

Against all these odds, only a few high profile corruption cases have made it to the judgment stage. But even so, it has been a continuum of disappointments for the Nigerian masses who have continued to wait in vain for the day a corrupt public office-holder would be convicted and adequately jailed.

In Benin last year, Justice Abubakar Liman convicted a younger brother of a former Governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion, Michael, of laundering N25bn belonging to the state.

For the offence, Michael was sentenced to only two years imprisonment with an option of N3m fine.

A former Managing Director of the defunct Oceanic Bank, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, who was convicted in 2010 for banking fraud, was sentenced to only six months imprisonment – a term she served in a highbrow hospital on Victoria Island, Lagos.

What this trends have done is to erode the hope and confidence of the Nigerian masses that the judiciary and the anti-graft agencies will help to deter corruption. Yet there is a common agreement that corruption is at the root of the nation’s woes, evident in form of widespread poverty, retarded development and stunted growth.

In what would seem like an experiment, Nigerians last March voted President Muhammadu Buhari to power on the promise that he would fight corruption and set the nation on the path of development.

True to that expectation, since Buhari was sworn in last May, it has been a season of arrests, arraignments, remand and trials.

At the last count, there were no fewer than a dozen cases of corruption in court involving high profile persons and the list is still growing.

But as opposed to the past when high profile corruption cases just fizzle out without conviction, will this Buhari season bring a change?

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Norrison Quakers, and a legal practitioner, who is also a don at the University of Lagos, Dr. Kayode Idowu, commonly believe that beyond the judiciary and the anti-graft agencies, the political will of the executive is the most important weapon required to fight corruption.

Quakers said, “It takes a man of integrity, a man that is apolitical and incorruptible to drive the process of ensuring that corrupt individuals are brought to book.

“And due to the body language of the current President, a lot of public officer-holders are now being prosecuted, and if they are found guilty they will be convicted.

“It takes a process, and for me, from what the Attorney General of the Federation has said there will be no sacred cows; and he went as far as saying that the aspect of plea bargain will not also come to the fore in relation to the cases being handled by the Federal Government, particularly embezzlement of funds.

“Now, if that is the position that the government has taken, we are going to see a situation where a lot of alleged criminals will be convicted under this present dispensation.”

Idowu believes that the place of the judiciary and the anti-graft agencies is secondary to the political will and the readiness of the executive to fight corruption.

He said, “What is different between the fight against corruption now and the fight that we have been having before is that we now have a President who has the credential to fight corruption.

“The fight against corruption is about the man who is driving the fight. And the man who is driving the fight now has the political will and he has the clout and the whole world can testify to it.

“As far as this fight is concerned, the critical factor is Mr. President. If you have an executive that is serious about fighting corruption, the judiciary will follow suit. It is not about the judiciary; if you bring a case that is water-tight, well-investigated and you have your facts, I do not see a judge that will frustrate it.”

This view is partly shared by Mr. Kunle Ogunba (SAN), who insisted that the judiciary is not to be blamed for past failed anti-corruption efforts.

Ogunba said, “I think what we really need is leadership to tame the advent of corruption and then for the corruption cases to be well handled.

“When you look at those issues of allegations of corruption and their prosecution, it is not entirely a judiciary affair. For a lawyer, you will know that a judge will only act on the evidence that you bring. It is not what happens on the pages of newspapers and within our constitution there is that presumption of innocence, which means that the prosecuting agencies have to prove all corruption cases beyond reasonable doubts.

“What we have found out is that in some of these cases, the prosecutions are not well versed with the facts of their cases to secure a conviction and then also lawyers for the prosecution sometimes are not as optimal as that of the defence and in that instance, there is absolutely nothing that the judge can do.

“But we have seen cases where accused persons are convicted on the pages of the newspapers even before the trial began and then when we get to court you’d find out that the evidence that they (prosecution) have is not even enough; they have not even done a thorough investigation of the case to ensure that the judge will have no other option but to convict the accused person.

“A judge will not convict somebody based on what he reads in the newspapers. The moral of what I am saying is that within the confine of this 2016, I think that the prosecution and the investigative authorities must do their home work, they must have their evidence before they charge suspects to court and once they gather the evidence the judiciary will do its bit.”

But Lagos-based lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, expressed outright cynicism at the adequacy of the present anti-corruption framework to yield any result.

Adegboruwa said, “I think we should get to a level where we can get the EFCC to understand its role. What the prosecuting agencies are currently doing is to impress the powers that be that they are working and that will not get us anywhere.

“If you check the record of the convictions secured by the EFCC since inception, you will find only cases involving low profile people, such as people who stole telephone, yahoo-yahoo boys, etc. No major high profile case against a political office-holder has ever succeeded. And what that simply points to is that sufficient investigations are not done to justify the sensation that are given to the cases.

“What am I saying? There is no sufficient funding for the anti-corruption agencies. Go to the EFCC office in Ikoyi, for instance, and see the working condition of the operatives. Many of them use their personal computers. They risk their lives to go after investigations and there are no incentives. The budgetary allocation for the EFCC this year is less than N12bn, what will that do?

“And who is the major prosecutor for the EFCC? Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN). He’s in the Supreme Court today, Lagos tomorrow, Calabar next tomorrow; you want to kill him? And the reason is that all other prominent lawyers cannot receive the kind of money that EFCC is offering. And so, when high profile cases get to court, the accused marshall the best of lawyers who look at the shoddy investigation done by the EFCC operatives, who are not motivated, and tear the evidence into pieces and you see 101 charges collapsing in a single preliminary objection. You’d see over 200 charges, which took a whole day to read in court, and not a single one will survive.

“And if you ask me, we are getting even to worse scenario because what the EFCC is now doing is to dissipate so much energy prior to arraignment. They bundle people into buses, beat them up, call press conferences and rigorously oppose bail applications but when it comes to the real trial, they lose steam; they are overwhelmed by the brilliance of the defence counsel and the cases start to collapse one after the other.

“There’s need for better funding of the EFCC. I must commend the investigators, the police and especially the lawyers but the resources that the government is putting at the disposal of the anti-graft agencies is not sufficient to prosecute the war and that’s why many lawyers don’t take up their cases and if you don’t have a good lawyer you must get ready to lose your case.”

For there to be a change from the past tale of failed prosecutions, a Nigerian lawyer, practising in the United Kingdom, Femi Aina, believes that, “The EFCC will need to convince Nigerians that their actions are not more of publicity than substance. In this new dispensation, they will need to build cast-iron cases before going to court. They will also need to keep their cases simple in order to get convictions. They will also need to manage their cases well because a situation where only one or two lawyers are becoming the face of the EFCC is not good. If care is not taken, it will have an effect on preparation for the cases.

“And then, there is also a need for the EFCC to make good use of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, while the rights of accused persons must also be respected.”

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cc lalasticlala

We all know the abokii is chasing shadows

Is it Buhari that will convict them??
This is where the lapses in the judiciary speaks volume! We have NUMEROUS corrupt judges with low integrity..

A good write up.