Corruption continues to fester in Nigeria as the anti-corruption crusade is bogged down by the judiciary through frivolous adjournments and fraudulent injunctions
By ANAYOCHUKWU AGBO
The name of Cassius honours this corruption
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head.
— William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar.
Farida Waziri, retired assistant inspector general of police and chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is not known to be a flippant woman. Her two years in office have been defined more by what she did not say than what she said. So when on Monday, June 8, at her second anniversary in office in Abuja she cried out that the anti-graft agency was being frustrated at the courts by judges and lawyers it came as a shock to the public. Was the EFCC boss making excuses for the failings of her commission or is the judiciary, known as the last hope of the common man, truly subverting justice?
Investigations show that though EFCC may have had some crisis of credibility of recent, Waziri was actually expressing strong feelings of frustration over attempts to put on trial those indicted of corruption. And her frustration thus echoes the muffled tales of what inspires efforts of the bar and the bench to slow down the war against corruption in Nigeria.
She is not the only one who is complaining. Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, formerly of the Supreme Court, who recently marked his 50 years in the legal profession and chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, is also not comfortable with the speed of the judiciary in the administration of criminal justice system. He told the magazine last week that his commission’s anti-graft cases are stagnated at various courts across the nation since 2005. The revered judge is particularly concerned that the nation’s criminal justice system has broken down. That should bother Nigerians who thought the government had a lid over the cesspool of corruption killing the economy of the country. Ayoola and Waziri are the duo with the remit to prosecute the all-important war against corruption. Both are frustrated by intentional legal roadblocks most times fraudulently obtained from the courts entrusted with the trial of suspects whose cases have been duly investigated by the anti-graft agencies.
Even if Waziri, a retired policewoman, though trained in law, could throw a dart at the judiciary for either selfish reasons or over a few cases, Ayoola is not one to pull down a house he had helped to build over the years. So what happened?
The magazine’s investigation show that politically exposed persons, PEPs, after being investigated by the anti-graft agencies and charged to court allegedly bribe judicial officers to make sure their cases are never tried. Knowing that they would eventually be found guilty and sent to jail, they wriggle their way to freedom through incessant adjournments and perpetual injunctions against the anti-graft agencies. Waziri said last week that “The reality of our legal system is that prosecution of well-heeled individuals and the entire jurisprudence can be tampered with on technical grounds in the full glare of the best of judges.” That is food for thought for the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, whose members, under the guise of fair hearing, prolong cases through legal technicalities and sometimes extraneous motions. Today, there are cases instituted over five years ago that have not gone beyond the preliminary stages. The calculation is to keep the cases on the court shelves while waiting for a favourable political environment to completely kill the cases.
When such fails, the allegation is that some judiciary officials make themselves available for compromise. So who are the officials who subvert justice for pecuniary gains? Unfolding events show that the heads of anti-graft agencies may have been speaking in parables, not wanting to be drawn into the controversy over corruption in the judiciary. But two prominent men in the legal system last week hit the nail on the head. Afe Babalola, a senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and Kayode Eso, retired justice of the Supreme Court, frowned at the level of corruption in the judiciary. Babalola, who is also president of Nigeria’s Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, spoke on deals often entered into during the hearing of election petition cases. Eso said, “It is sad from what the president (Babalola) had said … about what is happening in election petitions. He is saying, just in a twinkle of the eye, that some judges are becoming millionaires. In fact, those of us who have passed through the yoke of being judges, what we hear outside shatters us, because they are not just millionaires as we were told but billionaires.” He, therefore, called on Justice Alloysius Katsina-Alu, the chief justice of Nigeria, CJN, to consider the possibility of setting up a panel to probe the reports.
Eso sure knows what he is talking about. He once headed a panel that unravelled high-level corruption in the judiciary. That panel recommended 47 judges for sack. But the General Sani Abacha regime, which appointed the panel, found the report a little too hot to handle. So eight years after the report was submitted, a review panel headed by Bola Babalakin, another retired justice of the Supreme Court, had a Herculean task securing a copy to do its job. Not a single copy could be traced out of the 100 copies submitted to government in 1994. Apart from that, the appendix containing details of the alleged corrupt deals could not be found in the personal copy Eso sent to President Olusegun Obasanjo who appointed the review panel. Apparently, there was a clandestine effort at covering up for the indicted judges. It worked for many of them, as only six were eventually sacked based on available facts. They are George Uloko, chief judge of Plateau State; Dahiru Saleh, chief judge of Abuja High Court; J. U. Obasse and R. I. E. Odu, both of Cross River State High Court; Moshood Olugbani, Lagos High Court, and M. O. Goodhead, Rivers State High Court. Similarly, David Adeniji and Okechukwu Opene, both former justices of the court of Appeal were sacked after the NJC confirmed that they compromised in the appeal on the 2003 Anambra State election petition between Ugochukwu Uba and Ikechukwu Abana
Did such sanctions serve as deterrent? It is most unlikely. That is why Fred Alasia, SAN and former director of National Orientation Agency, NOA, Rivers State, said sometime ago in an interview with the magazine that “When morality fails, impunity reigns! And I think our judicial system has failed the morality test.” He has personal experiences which include the refusal of the governing council of the University of Port Harcourt, his former employer, to honour three court rulings, thus denying him justice for over 10 years. Then, the same year those judges were sacked, the Supreme Court was caught in a controversial case that threatened the image of the apex court in the land. A body known as Derivation Front had petitioned against the court, then under the leadership of Mohammed Uwais, alleging that the Supreme Court justices took N5 million each to skew justice in favour of former Delta State governor James Ibori, whose qualification for election was in contention. The front attached a copy of the lead judgment yet to be delivered. The CJN suspected that the house of the court was leaking. He said, “When you read this petition, we all agree that this is something from within and I have an idea who it is. It is a justice of this court.” The same body was to later accuse Uwais of taking 13 Honda cars as bribe by a party to an appeal before the court. The National Judicial Council absolved the former CJN of the allegation.
Those who allege corruption in the judiciary may not just be acting on hearsay alone, some of them give expressions to fears of a breakdown of the justice system. That is why the suggestion by Eso, concerning a probe, needs to be taken seriously. It is also in the best interest of the affected judicial officers, who may be cleared by such exercise. If the CJN delays in taking that bold step, the judiciary, even where not compromised, may carry the burden of inefficiencies of some other agencies. According to Waziri, the EFCC has done well in the circumstances in which it operates and “can conveniently boast” of its achievements, but things could have been massively different if PEPs have been brought to justice. Because they had looted the common wealth and appeared to have gotten away with it, corruption is galloping in the country instead of decreasing in the face of increased onslaught by the anti-graft agencies. She inherited about 10 high-profile cases, but today the EFCC has 1,200 cases pending in courts, over 50 of that are high-profile cases involving top PEPs.
The good news is that the commission says they have secured “over 100 convictions” and recovered over $3.5 billion in the last two years. Some of those convicted include Lucky Igbinedion, former governor of Edo State, and Bode George, former chairman of Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, and former national vice chairman (South-west) of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The latter was sentenced to two years imprisonment without option of fine while Igbinedion got away with only a N3-million fine, considered by many as a slap on the wrist. But the problem is that the high-profile cases represent just a fraction of the cases for which convictions were got.
All other convictions were mostly of business deals in the private sector, especially advanced fee fraud, popularly called 419 in Nigeria. The prison sentences showed a lot of arbitrariness and even irony as those who stole less got longer prison terms. For instance, while George, a politically exposed person, got a two-year sentence for N100 billion and Igbinedion, also a politically exposed person, escaped with a paltry fine of N3 million for an alleged corruption to the sum of N4.3 billion, a private citizen, Christopher Chukwu, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for impersonation and stealing N1.5 million only. The sentence of Megwue Joseph is equally pathetic; he got three years sentence for forgery and stealing of share certificates valued at N600, 000. Even more irrational is the sentence of the duo of Ajani Ajawesola and Adewale Alexander; they got 24 years each for obtaining N5 million under false pretences. The conclusion appears inevitable that the Nigerian justice system is manifestly skewed against the ordinary citizen without political exposure.
That is why Waziri expressed frustration over the commission’s inability to convict the politically exposed persons due to legal impediments at the courts: “Most of the cases are hanging; we are meeting frustrations in court.” She is very worried that the lack of progress in the high-profile cases will affect the country’s international rating in the corruption index. Before that index comes out, the country is already suffering humiliation offshore. Christopher Hardy, a judge of the Southwark Crown Court, London, gave the Nigerian judiciary a thumb down early this month. He was delivering verdict in the cases of money laundering involving Christine Ibori-Ibie and Udoamaka Okoronkwo, sister and mistress, respectively, to Ibori. Hear the judge: “I want to make it absolutely clear that Nigeria’s judiciary was usurped. Countries who are signatories to fighting corruption and money laundering must live to the full letter of their commitments.” Apart from the fact that the women had a bad case, even their counsel, Andrew Trolope, Queen’s Counsel, QC (equivalent of SAN), said that much and also indicted Ibori in his submission: “You should ask why such a woman (Christine) with good family background (is) in this crime. The answer is James Ibori and it is he that must bear full responsibility.” He said of Udoamaka: “She did it for love. She has a five-year-old daughter for James Ibori. She still loves him and loves her child.” But the judiciary in Nigeria shields the man at the centre of that crime. That is why the judge says "Nigeria’s judiciary was usurped.” Perhaps such comments may have roused the CJN to look into the allegations, with a view to sanitising the system. The EFCC chairman, who said she had complained to the CJN, hinted that Katsina-Alu had in turn written to the judicial hierarchy to look into the complaints. They will have to act fast before matters get to a head.
This is because Ayoola, too, is disturbed by the development. According to him, “Some cases filed since 2005 when I came on board are still pending. Some have not started because they are held up in appeal. Most of the cases are bogged down by judicial processes.” Being a former high-profile judge does not make his junior colleagues accord Ayoola’s ICPC any favours in consideration of their cases. And being a stickler for due process, Ayoola would not plead with his colleagues. “As a previous insider, there is no way I’ll even think of influencing how the judiciary works; I’ll not use my previous status (as a judge) to influence the sector, but I can advocate for a faster pace in how the judiciary works. Even as chief justice of Nigeria if you have a case, you are on equal pedestal with any litigant,” he said. That was what they were taught in training, but politicians have since changed the rules and dulled the wit of some of them with money. Now, will such committed persons not be pushed to becoming fatalistic and withdraw their services to enjoy retirement? Well, the luck for the nation is that some of them are not giving up yet.
While Ayoola, as an erudite judge, is searching the books for procedures to overcome the black-market injunctions and adjournments, Waziri’s frustration is understandable; of the 10 high-profile cases she inherited involving PEPs none has made much progress due to court injunctions and incessant adjournments. There are also about 50 new cases she has completed the investigation against PEPs and top technocrats who helped them loot the treasury and charged them to court. Today, they are all mired in deliberate court injunctions and adjournments. In some cases, some politicians have gone to court and obtained perpetual injunctions not to be investigated by the EFCC. “Perpetual injunction is not in our law; we have been trying to vacate that order so that we won’t be accused of disobeying court order,” stated Waziri. She further lamented that “somebody who steals bread is convicted immediately but the man who loots a state dry is celebrated; when you take them to court they are waving and cheering!”
Put together, about 40 PEPs have been charged to court by the EFCC for allegedly looting various tiers of government of over N230 billion. None of the cases is making progress at the court. For instance, Ayo Fayose, former governor of Ekiti State, was arraigned before Federal High Court Lagos since December 17, 2006 on a 51-count charge for looting the state treasury to the tune of N1.2 billion. He has been granted bail since 2007. Since then the case just simply faded off the court schedule. The plea was taken but, according to EFCC, the “defence lawyer keeps filing frivolous applications for long adjournments to frustrate and prolong trial.”
Similarly, the EFCC filed a case against Saminu Turaki, former governor of Jigawa State, in 2007 at a federal capital city high court, sitting at Maitama, Abuja, for the alleged looting of his poor state to the tune of N36 billion during his tenure as governor. He was arraigned on a 32-count charge but apart from the plea that was taken, no further progress has been made on the case. Rather, the defence lawyer challenged the jurisdiction of the court and with the case stalled at the high court, they have gone to the Court of Appeal seeking stay of trial.
Adamu Abdulahi was the former governor of Nasarawa State. After eight years in office, the EFCC, after thorough investigation, alleged that he looted the treasury of over N15 billion under frivolous subheads. He was charged to Federal High Court Lafia, capital of the state, on March 3, 2010 on a 149-count charge. A breakdown showed that Abudulahi and Bala Usman, his commissioner for local government affairs, for 63 months between 1999 and May 2007 connived and authorised systematic illegal withdrawal of N39 million monthly from the 13 local governments in the state to a total of N2.5 billion. He also allegedly connived with his works commissioner and awarded phony contracts to local and international companies making up to over N12 billion in eight years. Despite being charged to court on these allegations, Abdulahi is confidently campaigning for a PDP ticket to go to the Senate in 2011 where he is expected to make laws for the good governance of the country, including anti-corruption laws for the EFCC and the ICPC. Recently, he resigned his position as the secretary of PDP Board of Trustees because of the case.
Attahiru Bafarawa, former governor of Sokoto State, is on the same wavelength with Abdulahi. He was equally arraigned before a Sokoto high court on a 47-count charge of looting his state of an alleged N15 billion during his tenure as governor. However, since the case was charged to court on December 16, 2009, nothing more has been heard.
Rasheed Ladoja, former governor of Oyo State, was arraigned before a federal high court in Lagos in December 2008 on a 33-count charge of looting an alleged sum of N6 billion during his tenure as governor of the state. Comparatively, a little progress is being made as trial has commenced and prosecution witnesses are slated for cross-examination in November. It is suspected that Ladoja’s case is moving because of his feud with his former deputy, Christopher Alao-Akala, who is now the governor of Oyo State.
Another case is that of Chimaroke Nnamani, former governor of Enugu State and currently a "distinguished" senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Nnamani was arraigned before a federal high court in Lagos on December 11, 2007 on a 105-count charge of looting the sum of N5.3 billion from the allocation of some selected rural local government councils in the state. According to the EFCC, the plea was taken but the case is stalled by the defence counsel who filed to transfer the case on the allegation of bias against the trial judge. Not done, the counsel is equally challenging the jurisdiction of the court to hear the case. “This is equally an attempt to prolong trial,” says EFCC.
The case of Ibori has attained a high level of notoriety. He recently escaped from Nigeria to evade arrest by the EFCC and was arrested in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he is in custody awaiting extradition to United Kingdom to face trial on money laundering and corruption. Two accomplices have been convicted and sentenced to various jail terms by a court in London. Back home, he is facing a 170-count charge before Federal High Court Asaba for an alleged looting of N9.2 billion from the state till when he was governor. The case had been on since the tenure of Nuhu Ribadu as EFCC chairperson. Waziri filed fresh charges in 2009. He was initially arraigned at the federal high court in Kaduna. He challenged the jurisdiction of the court and lost at the trial court. He went on appeal and won. Consequently, the case was reassigned to Federal High Court Asaba. Without even taking the plea, Ibori applied for the charges to be quashed and the judge quashed them on December 19, 2009, despite the opposition of the prosecution. The EFCC, however, appealed against the decision on December 23, 2009 and January 8, 2010.
The case of Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State, has been at the Maitama High Court, Abuja, since 2007. He was arraigned on a 107-count charge of looting “God’s Own State” of N5 billion; his plea of “not guilty” has been taken but not much progress has been made. His lawyer raised preliminary objection against the charges and lost at the trial court. He then proceeded on appeal and applied for a stay of trial. To the EFCC, “It is part of the usual attempt to prolong trial.” Kalu, who is the chairman of Progressive Peoples Alliance Board of Trustees, is warming up to contest the 2011 presidential election as the candidate of his party.
Other PEPs whose cases are equally marooned in the courts include: Michael Botmang, a former governor of Plateau State; Joshua Dariye, his predecessor; Jolly Nyame, former governor of Taraba, and Boni Haruna, former governor of Adamawa.
The result is that the truly corrupt escape justice and continue to flaunt their wealth. However, the first attempt to discourage corruption through the Asset Forfeiture Bill failed at the National Assembly, whose members are beneficiaries of the loose regulatory system. Waziri says the EFCC is working to reintroduce the bill. If passed, it will make suspects forfeit possessions that cannot be accounted for by their legitimate earnings to the federal government. The NASS had thrown out the bill, claiming it was "unconstitutional", but Waziri says it is their duty to make laws and once made it becomes constitutional. “Corruption is endemic in the country ... something drastic has to be done,” she insists.
That is why the EFCC boss feels that a special court on corruption will dispense with the traditional legal bottlenecks to help the anti-corruption crusade. She says, “The encumbrances of the regular court will no longer be there. Prolonged adjournments will no longer be there. Frivolous injunctions will be minimised. The court will be more focussed on the cases and judgment will not take too much time to be delivered. It is a win-win arrangement for the judiciary and the entire nation.”
Ayoola does not think so. Rather he feels that establishing special courts will be tantamount to a return to the jungle days of the military when the rights of citizens were abused; rather, he recommends the strengthening of legal procedures and enforcing compliance with the timeline stipulated in the procedure. Notwithstanding their frustrations and different views, the two heads of the anti-graft bodies have resolved to soldier on. Listen to Waziri, “Things have been very tedious, but we remain resolute. What is worth doing is worth doing well. We have to move on; corruption is endemic and we are all victims.”