ICPC Wants Special Courts For Corruption cases

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), has advocated the establishment of anti-corruption courts to solely handle corruption case.

Mr Godwin Oche, the Head of Research and Statistics, made the call in an interview with our correspondent yesterday in Abuja.

He said such courts would speed up prosecution and conviction of culprits in the country.

“ ICPC has been prosecuting through the courts and we’ve been securing convictions. I know that we’ve gotten convictions may be not as many as Nigerians want.

“But ICPC does not have a court of its own, it does not have a tribunal like the Code of Conduct for instance, so it prosecutes its cases in the normal courts of the land and we know the problems, delays and all that in our court system.

“So those are parts of the problems ICPC has I know we have designated courts for anti-corruption cases that to me is not enough.

“If we could have anti-corruption courts solely dedicated to anti-corruption matters I think that will go a long way to help in speeding up the prosecution of corruption in Nigeria.”

Oche said one of the major challenges facing the commission was inadequate funding, adding that with proper funding, the commission would function better.

“ ICPC as an organisation has problem with funding.

“As it is now, we ought to have offices in the states, at the local government, but we have just 14 state offices for now, and we don’t have any office at the local government level.

“Even at the headquarters, the staff strength is still a far cry from what it ought to be and all these boil down to the issue of funding.

“Most of our operations, the investigations, the systems study, the public enlightenment are all activities that cost money.

“ A situation where ICPC is not funded the way it ought to, it will definitely not be able to achieve all that it ought to achieve; that’s a problem.’’

Meanwhile,  National Secretary of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Sen. Lawal Shuaibu, has advised the EFCC to allow the ICPC pursue corruption cases and concentrate more energy on money-laundering and advance-fee fraud cases .

Shuaibu stated this while reacting to an Abuja High Court judgment which acquitted the former Speaker of House of Representatives and his Deputy, Mr Dimeji Bankole and Alhaji Usman Nafada, respectively on charges of corruption.

He told our correspondent in an interview in Abuja that the EFCC has no right in the first instance to charge the former speaker and his deputy to court over corruption charges.

He claimed that only the ICPC has ‘‘legal’’ right to pursue corruption charges.

‘’ EFCC is basically supposed to concentrate on money laundering not corruption. They have no legal authority to go after corruption cases, that is the exclusive rights of the ICPC not EFCC.

‘’So you are talking about corruption against Bankole, they are wrong.

‘’And they have not, out of all the charges, nowhere they said they were charging him for money laundering. For they have no lucus.

‘’So it was a very good thing that the judge acquitted them. ‘’In the first place the EFCC had no right to charge them to court for corruption. They should have handed over the matter to ICPC.’’

The ACN scribe maintained that, though fighting corruption was the responsibility of all, it remains the constitutional right of the ICPC to fight corruption.

‘’It’s just a pity that in Nigeria things have gone haywire and everybody does whatever he wants to do, otherwise, there’s no reason why EFCC should tag itself as anti-graft.

‘’ICPC is the anti-graft agency not EFCC.

‘’We know fighting corruption is everybody’s responsibility, but when you are trying to say that you are doing your statutory responsibility, EFCC should back out of corruption cases to allow ICPC to do it.’’

Shuaibu described the judgement as a ‘fantastic decision’, adding that the former Speaker was a mere presiding officer and not the accountant.

According to him, Bankole’s duty as speaker was to either to approve or not approve proposals presented by the management and this does not go to say he spent or took the money.

Bankole, and his deputy, Nafada, were both acquitted on Tuesday by Justice Suleiman Belgore over a 17-count charge of criminal breach of trust slammed on them by the EFCC.