BY BRIGHT JACOB
The Zonal Coordinator of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Lagos Zone, Adelaja Odukoya, has said it was high time Nigeria reviewed her lawmaking and justice delivery systems following the announcement by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that it secured a record 2,220 convictions in 2021.
The EFCC in a review of its performance in the outgone year, 2021, had announced that it secured a total of 2,220 convictions across all its commands in 2021. The commission further stated that the convictions were the highest since it was established.
Reacting to the statistics, Odukoya said Nigeria doesn’t show any seriousness to criminal prosecutions, and that as a matter of urgency, our lawmaking and justice delivery systems should be reviewed.
“The bottom line is that we have not shown enough seriousness in terms of the prosecution of crime, and again if actually they (EFCC) have gotten that kind of convictions, the question we have to ask is whether there’s a problem at the level of lawmaking and delivery of justice.
That could mean that the sanctions are not enough deterrent, and we must review them,” he said.
“For instance, if you have the Ibori saga or the Igbinedion saga, where people who allegedly stole so much from the public coffers, and the kind of convictions you have was just a pat on the back, or a slap on the wrist, it will not discourage others from doing it.”
Continuing, the ASUU zonal coordinator said it shouldn’t just be about the convictions, but about the kind of conviction one gets. According to him, “Nigerians are actually not interested in numbers. We are interested in the quality, and in the effectof our convictions. It’s also about the kind of justice you give to Nigerians, and this is because justice is a three-way road: for the person being accused, for the accuser, and for the whole society.”
While remarking on the performance of the EFCC, it’s Executive Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, gave kudos to the personnel of the Commission for their hard work and commitment, despite the challenges confronting criminal prosecutions in the courts.
“Thus, if the EFCC is telling you that they have two million or twenty million convictions, go and check it on record; you will see that most of them are plea bargain. The high profile politicians that are looting the country are left untouched”
Reacting to the commendation of the EFCC boss, Odukoya said, “Corruption has actually been frog jumping in the country, and that means that whatever the EFCC is doing, if they think it’s enough to beat their chest or to roll out the drums, then they are joking and have not started yet because whatever convictions they’re getting, it’s not making meaning on the streets because when you categorize these convictions, you might even see that it involves most of these “yahoo boys” and the small fry.”
Odukoya traced most of the problems plaguing the nation to corruption, and advised the EFCC to sit up. “The problem of corruption that has actually been bedeviling this country is what we call ground corruption or political corruption, or corruption in high places, particularly among political office holders, the civil servants, and even in the military, where part of the problem with Boko Haram is that quite a number of the money being voted for arms and ammunition are being diverted.”
He said the searchlight was not being focused in the right direction, and so the EFCC needed to “up their game”. According to him, “That’s why their conviction is too little and makes no sense, and has not in any meaningful way affected the corruption situation in the Nigerian society.”
A lawyer, Fred Aigbadumah, agreed with the ASUU zonal coordinator. While answering questions posed to him by The Point on why the numbers released by the EFCC didn’t translate to a fall in economic and financial crimes, he said most of the convictions were not high profile cases of politicians that had millions and billions of dollars and pound Sterling, but that of the popular yahoo-yahoo boys or fraudsters.
He also said he had handled cases for some of his clients accused by the EFCC of one crime or the other, and that most times, the convictions came about through “plea bargain”. According to Aigbadumah, “That one (plea bargain) is very easy for them (EFCC) to enter, and conviction is conviction, whether plea bargain or through trial.”
“So, most of these convictions, if you go and check the records, were indeed plea-bargained. In fact, let me let you know, I handled some of them. I was even a bit reluctant and hesitant in accepting some of them (plea bargain) for my clients.”
Aigbadumah, however, stated that owing to time factor and the fact that these young clients were ready to carry on with their lives, and looked at the future ahead of them, he would eventually agree to it.
“Thus, if the EFCC is telling you that they have two million or twenty million convictions, go and check it on record; you will see that most of them are plea bargain. The high profile politicians that are looting the country are left untouched,” he said.
Apart from plea bargain, Aigbadumah also listed the poor economic situation in the country as another reason why crime rate was not declining. Though he said the poor economy should not be an excuse for crime and criminality, he berated the APC government for the hardship. “The economy is so hard under this APC or Buhari regime, and they’re still planning to add to the hardship by removing subsidy in the coming weeks or months. It’s, therefore, because of the economic hardship and the theory of the survival of the fittest in social psychology, or what we call survival imperative, where people are ready to do anything to survive by all means, whether legal or illegal.”
Aigbadumah added that nobody was supporting any form of criminality; hence the government should do everything in its power to cushion the effects of the hardship on the people because of the lack of economic policies that took the nation where it is today.
On his part, the Chairman of the Osun State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Bishop Amos Ogunrinde said the inability of crime rate to go down after all the convictions by the EFCCis an indicator that we are in the end time. He said that what we are witnessing with the rise in corruption and corrupt practices is a part of the signs of the end times. He noted that most people in the world had sold their souls to the devil and that was why the gospel was being preached, for the conversion of their souls.
He also added that Nigerians have taken corruption as a way of life and that people were ready to re-loot even recovered loots. “Nigerians have taken corruption as a part of their lives. It has become the order of the day, so people don’t see anything bad in it. Even as you are arresting someone now, you will find another person stealing from what was stolen and recovered,” he said.
Speaking further, he said, “The only person who can help us and bring solution is God. He alone can change the hearts of men. Our hearts need to be changed. When our hearts change, you will see that there will be changes in our character and in our way of life.”
The cleric also bemoaned the fact that most times, there wasn’t enough punishment commensurate with the crimes that were committed. He called for a stop to that.“You find a situation where someone who stole billions is allowed to go scot-free, while another fellow who stole only a chicken, because he has no one or no name, you throw him in prison. This must stop.”
Another notable Nigerian, Anderson Ezeibe, General Secretary of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, said that only the EFCC could give “appropriate” answers why the figures they usually release each year don’t translate to a fall in economic and financial crimes. He said most of those convictions were political.
“The reality is that when a lot of the prosecutions of these cases seem to be more political than actual crime fighting, what you will see is that there won’t be any meaningful impact. For instance, I am even surprised to hear that they’ve secured 2,220 convictions. In any economy that is working, in a society that has a conscience, in a society that has a moral fibre that is still intact, certainly this should have served as a deterrent especially to persons holding political offices or people who are in custody of public funds,” he said.
Ezeibe said that unfortunately it wasn’t translating to a fall in economic crimes because a lot of the cases were political in nature, andthere was nothing showing that economic crime fighting was being done in a genuine way.
