Nigeria which should have been the pride of the black race has now become a pariah nation due to endemic corruption
Today, as never before, the level of criminal activities in our country is on the ascendancy as bare-faced looting of public treasury, fuel subsidy scam, pension scam, money laundering, economic crimes of all sorts, oil bunkering, kidnapping and cold-blooded murder, name it, are committed with impunity.”
This was the lamentation of the former Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, Justice Mustapha Akanbi, over Nigeria when he delivered a keynote address at the 46th Annual Conference of the National Association of Law Teachers, NALT, recently in Ilorin.
Given this state of affairs which makes security of life and property pretty difficult, Akanbi was saddened that the country, which should have been the pride of the black race, had been reduced to a pariah nation and is in a state of utter helplessness. He warned that “we are on the precipice of the predicted failed state” if corruption is not tackled with the seriousness it deserves.
The retired jurist, who blamed the surge in economic crimes in the country largely on lack of political will to confront the menace head on, wondered why these days, many indicted, accused former governors, ministers and party officials are still walking majestically around the country with their loot intact. More disturbingly, he noted that some of them had not only managed to walk their way back to the corridors of power but are also being celebrated.
•Justice Mustapha Akanbi and NBA chairman, Justice Okey Wali
Incidentally, as he put it, they had become power brokers and had been able to install their cronies in choice ministerial and civil service positions, thereby widening the vicious circle of corruption and making the fight against it more arduous. If the heinous crime is not being condoned by those who wield political power and authority, how does one explain cases of some former governors, who have been charged to court for corruption and/or looting of the public treasury, shamelessly sitting in the hallowed hall of the National Assembly, taking part in the on-going debates..?” Akanbi queried.
To him, and going by the civil service rules and regulations, once an officer is arrested for committing a criminal offence, he is immediately either placed on interdiction or suspension until his case is finally determined by the law court. He wondered what is now happening to those rules and regulations which were designed to sanitise the system. Corruption, according to the pioneer ICPC Chairman, aside breeding inefficiency and giving quacks a field day, impeding long term foreign and domestic investment and making project planning difficult and attainment of set economic goals impossible, creates social unrest, economic upheaval and political instability.
He noted that, more often than not, mediocre, incompetent and corrupt individuals, rather than resourceful, efficient and competent hands, find their way to various positions of power and authority which they use and manipulate to their own advantage and not to the benefit of the society. “Consequently, the nation begins to drift and slide dangerously down the slippery road of economic ruination,” he lamented.
He added that efforts of the enforcement agencies at the recovery of looted funds are in the right direction. Akanbi, however, observed that it is not a good panacea to allow the looter to get away with the remainder of his loot, while recovery of stolen property should also not be a reason for an accused to be left off the hook.
The Judiciary, he said, has a key role to play in the fight against corruption, adding that an independent, impartial and informed judiciary is sine qua non for an open, honest and accountable government. He, therefore, admonished judges to be fair and just and should tower over and above corruption by being faithful to their judicial oath and refusing to be influenced by extraneous consideration. He urged the president, governors and religious leaders to lead by example by being in the vanguard of the struggle to eliminate corruption or reduce it to a tolerable level.
In his opening remarks, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Okey Wali, SAN, reiterated the call for the introduction of the teaching of professional ethics in the curricula of universities. NBA, according to him, is collaborating with the National Universities’ Commission to ensure that accreditation is denied any university that fails to teach professional ethics. “We have too many problems of ethics at the bar; we have too many problems of indiscipline and when you talk about the problems of the bench, they emanate from the universities because you can only appoint for the bench the quality that is available from the bar,” he lamented.
In line with Akanbi’s argument, Wali argued that corruption is the biggest cancer that is eating up the country, arguing that most problems bedeviling the country such as infrastructural decay, poverty, unemployment and insecurity, among others, are traceable to corruption. Any lawyer, he said, implicated in any act of corruption would be made to lose his or her membership of the NBA, adding that the NBA is collaborating with the NJC to turn the country’s judiciary to a model that everybody would be proud of.
In his welcome address, Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali, who described the conference theme as very apt and timely, noted that corruption is not a new phenomenon but a scourge that has eaten up every facet of the country. Ambali was represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Felix Oladele.
In his address NALT President, Dr. Abdulqadir Ibrahim Abikan, stated that the drive to eliminate corruption prompted the choice of the conference theme: “Corruption and National Development”. He added that NALT annual conference had become a household event through which law teachers throughout the country ruminate on topical national issues.
—Stephen Olufemi Oni/Ilorin
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