CORRUPTION, PENSION THIEF AND JUSTICE-Punch

By The Citizen

The furore over the light sentence given to a former civil servant, who, with seven others, stole about N27 billion pension funds, advertises afresh to the world that Nigeria is losing the war against corruption. It has rightly re-ignited the clamour for a radical overhaul of our justice system and a surgical operation to cleanse the judiciary of all the vestiges of graft. There is a need for a dramatic change of attitude by the government towards corruption and by a judiciary that is fast losing its honour and public confidence.

For a country seemingly inured to shocks, Nigeria was badly jolted by the judgment on January 29 of a Federal High Court, Abuja, in the corruption case filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission against John Yakubu Yusuf, a former assistant director at the Police Pension Office, who pleaded guilty to conniving with other members of staff to steal N27.2 billion police pension funds. Justice Abubakar Talba, acting on a dubious plea bargain arrangement, sentenced Yusuf, who admitted to receiving N3.3 billion as his share of the loot, to two years each on three counts, to run concurrently or, in the alternative, to pay N250, 000 fine on each count. The outrage this slap on the wrist provoked across the country and beyond was not doused by the forfeiture of 32 houses and N325 million traced to Yusuf.  The felon promptly paid the N750, 000 fine and zoomed off, only to be re-arrested a day later by the bungling EFCC and arraigned on fresh charges.

Nigerians are not amused by the games being played by the EFCC and a complacent judiciary that has failed to rise up to the challenge posed to national development by corruption. But corruption is killing the country, draining between 40 and 80 per cent of all public expenditures, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The Yusuf saga is filthy all through. It provides a profound insight into the collapse of our criminal justice system. What prompted the EFCC to opt for a plea bargain in the first place when the case was an open-and-shut one? The paper trail of the N27.2 billion was well documented, requiring no extraordinary detective work to prove, especially as the accused person's properties and bank accounts had been identified. For that matter, why file a charge with a maximum penalty of two years with an option of fine that would give a lenient judge the leeway to let the thief off so lightly?  Given the amount of money stolen and the sad fact that the money was meant for retired policemen, some of who have been dying and collapsing in pension verification queues, why did the EFCC wait for a public outcry before filing fresh charges of false declaration of assets against Yusuf?

This charade must stop. A former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Musdapher Dahiru, once declared emphatically that plea bargain had no place in our legal system. In the United States and the United Kingdom where it has been adopted, it is formalised and the rules clearly spelt out to guide prosecutors, accused persons and judges. Here, there are no clear rules as its use by the EFCC, the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and judges has let off treasury looters lightly, thereby entrenching runaway corruption and impunity. It made its notorious debut in Nigeria in 2005 when, in succession, a former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, and a former Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun, pleaded guilty to charges of graft, forfeited billions of naira in assets and got meagre jail terms. A former Edo State Governor, Lucky Igbinedion, was fined N3.5 million after the EFCC bargained away the 191 charges it initially filed against him and substituted them for one! A curious arrangement also saw Julius Berger fined $26.5 million for its role in the Halliburton and Siemens bribe scams, while a former banker, Cecilia Ibru, got three concurrent six-month jail terms for stealing N191 billion.

Both the EFCC and Justice Talba have short-changed Nigerians' desire to mete out justice to corrupt officials and their accomplices. While the EFCC opted to charge Yusuf under a mild law despite the overwhelming evidence at its disposal, Talba took refuge under Section 309 of the Penal Code: 'Whoever commits criminal misappropriation shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with a fine or with both,' to sympathise with the unconscionable thief instead of the thousands of helpless retirees whose pensions were stolen. The law not only allows both imprisonment and fine, it does not impose a limit on the sum. Our judges need to key in to the war against corruption and use their discretion to impose the maximum penalties on those found guilty of corrupt practices. As Yusuf was smiling home, a magistrate's court in Ikare, Ondo State, was jailing Adepoju Jamiu, 23, three years without an option of fine for stealing a BlackBerry phone worth N17, 000, while in Abeokuta, Ogun State, a few days earlier, Mustapha Adesina, 49, was jailed two years, though with an option of fine, for stealing vegetables! A legal system that punishes petty thieves severely but pampers treasury looters whose grand larceny keeps the country trapped in underdevelopment needs an urgent review.

The real challenge is root-and-branch reform of the judiciary. President Goodluck Jonathan should urgently initiate moves to work with the National Assembly to review our criminal laws. Corruption is bleeding the nation to death and the National Judicial Commission should reopen all corrupt cases against judges and instil zero tolerance for graft in the judiciary.

Talba's judgment can only encourage greater impunity among our irredeemably corrupt officials. The tarnished EFCC should cleanse itself and scrupulously use its wide investigative and prosecutorial powers for the greater good of the society. It should stop the illegality of plea bargain and ensure that corrupt persons are not only effectively prosecuted, but all their ill-gotten loot is also recovered.