Skip to main content

An assessment of PMB/APC regime on the fight against corruption


AN ASSESSMENT OF PMB/APC FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION IN THE PAST ONE YEAR: THE NEED FOR LEGAL REFORM AND THE CHALLENGE OF OPERATING WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE EXISTING FRAMEWORK OF RULE OF LAW

By

Femi Aborisade, Esq.

The 2015 victory of PMB shows the aversion of the average Nigerian for corruption. However, there is widespread concern that the regime’s fight against corruption should not be a means of political control, to whip opponents in line.


If the PMB regime could overcome the charge of political and regime bias, taking the fight against corruption forward would require legal reform of a fundamental proportion, a paradigm shift in the law governing criminal prosecution such that as far as allegations of corruption alone are concerned, the suspect should be presumed guilty until he/she proves otherwise beyond reasonable doubt. In other words, it is the accused public officer/former public officer who should discharge the burden of proving that his/her possessions and assets are not products of illicit acts.

Unless and until the proposed legal reform is effected, anti-graft agencies have a responsibility to conduct themselves strictly within the existing legal principle which says that the accused is presumed innocent until the contrary is proved beyond reasonable doubt. Prolonged detention before charging suspects to court, arresting before investigation, and so on, have no room within the existing established criminal justice system. For example, a person accused of an offence under the EFCC Act is not obliged to answer any question in the process of interrogation, except as it concerns giving details of his/her assets. Even in the court, the accused is not compellable to give evidence against himself/herself. This is the import of a community interpretation of sections 35(2), 35(4), 35(5), 35(7), 36(5), 36(6)(a)-(c) and 36(11) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, CFRN, 1999, as amended, section 27(1) of the EFCC Act; section 29 of the Police Act; Abidoye v. F.R.N (2014) 5 NWLR (Pt. 1399) 30 and Chwuemeka v. FRN (2016) 2 NWLR (Pt. 1495) 120.

 As an accusation of corruption is largely documentary, the anti-graft agencies should learn to gather quality evidence, arrest and charge suspects to court speedily and let them proceed to jail speedily in deserving cases, rather than demonizing the judiciary (as the clog in the wheel of the fight against corruption) and engaging in media propaganda.

Femi Aborisade, Esq.

26th May 2016.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GRATUITY AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS AND THE PENSION REFORM ACT 2004

Femi Aborisade Senior Principal Lecturer Department of Business Administration & Management Studies The Polytechnic, Ibadan & Centre for Labour Studies (CLS) Email: aborisadefemi@yahoo.com   Introduction Internationally, pension reform has been a common feature of public sector financial reforms since the 1990s. According to the OECD (2007), in Europe , the reforms have led to increased retirement age but a reduction in terminal benefits. Similar reforms have been embarked upon in the developing countries resulting in throwing poorer segments of the society into harsher economic conditions as responsibilities for old age care are transferred from the state to the individuals. Within the context of pension reforms on a global scale, this paper critically examines Nigeria ’s Pension Reform Act 2004. Though the particular interest of this workshop appears limited to provisions relating to gratuity under the Act, it is assumed that participants wo...
4 comments
Read more

THE IMPERATIVES OF JUSTICIABILITY OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN NIGERIA: AN ANALYSIS OF CHAPTER II OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTION AND JUDICIAL ATTITUDES

  Outline The following outline has been adopted in discussing this topic: ·          Introduction ·          What are the provisions of Chapter II of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN ) 1999? ·          The essence of the Chapter II provisions ·          Two Schools of Thought on Chapter II ·          The non-justiciability constitutional provision ·          The pro-justiciability provisions o    The constitutional pro-justiciability provisions o    Statutory pro-justiciability provisions: The African Charter on
1 comment
Read more
THE WORLD ECONOMIC RECESSION, NIGERIA’S ECONOMY AND CHALLENGES FOR THE WORKING CLASS   By   Femi Aborisade [1] aborisadefemi@yahoo.com or aborisadefemi@gmail.com     INTRODUCTION The world economy entered a turning point with the financial crunch of September-October 2008. Assessing the effects of the global meltdown on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the former NSE President, Oba Otudeko, stated:   it would be pretentious of anybody to say that we have solution to what is currently happening in the market…the DG has been here for 27 years, I don’t think she has seen anything like this since she has been here. And throughout the world, there hasn’t been anything like this; even the 1929 recession was not exactly like this (Oba Otudeko, 2009: 11).   Though the above comparison of the 2008 world financial crunch with the 1929 recession is not accurate, the assessment of the crisis is indicative of the shock waves which...
Post a Comment
Read more