Mohammed Shosanya

Any person found guilty of corruption should not enjoy State pardon,Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN),

He spoke at a roundtable organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for state Attorneys General in Abuja on Monday.

He also advised law enforcement agencies against shoddy investigations, urging them to have their facts before summoning anyone for questioning.

“I will suggest in our next constitution review exercise that we expunge those found guilty of corruption from benefiting from powers of ‘Prerogative of Mercy’ to serve as a deterrent to others,” he said.

He said the cooperation of all stakeholders, especially the Attorneys General of States, was crucial in the fight against corruption.

He advised the AGs to eschew nepotism, political witch-hunting, rivalry, and bigotry in the fight against corruption just because they want to please their governors.

Besides,the AGF said there should be no basis for rationalising corruption or crimes, stressing that
their legal opinions on cases must be based on the facts as practised in the advanced countries.

“We should not give in to public sentiments. In Nigeria, we are polarised along political lines” the AGF said.

He advised participants and anti-graft agencies to conduct thorough investigations of cases before arresting suspects to avoid media trials.

“Let us be thorough and take our time before inviting someone for questioning. Don’t do a shoddy job and be quick to say we have caught a big fish…You will catch a big fish.

“If it is two or three big fish you are able to get in a year and you are thorough, it is alright,” Fagbemi added.

In a statement by Kamarudeen Ogundele, Special Assistant to the President on Communication & Publicity,Office of the AGF & Minister of Justice,the AGF also counselled against filing bogus counts of charges against defendants just to generate frenzy in the public against the suspect.

“Nobody wants a 50-count charge…make it five or six and be sure. Make sure you get him (suspect) in,” he said.

Mohammed Shosanya

A former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Kanu Agabi, SAN has disclosed that the fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the State Security Service, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the NFIU and the Police has caused many Nigerians to horde their monies at home, instead of taking those monies to the banks.

According to him,the fear has now become a source of “distress to the nation’s economy,” noting that, “The cure is turning out to be worse than the disease.”

He spoke at the maiden ICPC Conference with State Attorneys General on Strengthening ICPC’s Capacity for Corruption Prevention, on Monday.

He declared that: “The time has come when we must encourage Nigerians who have monies abroad to bring such monies back home and invest here, even unconditionally.”

He warned that, “We have to be careful to ensure, as president Obasanjo feared, that the cure does not turn out to be worse than the disease. We have several institutions fighting corruption today, like the ICPC.

“These institutions have done very well indeed and are entitled to be commended. If we appear to be losing the fight against corruption, the fault is not theirs. We blame them only because we are not aware of the successes that they have achieved and are still achieving – the huge billions that they recover daily, the convictions that they obtain, the fear that they instill in potential criminals.”

However, he noted that, “It is this fear that is now becoming a source of distress to the nation. The cure is turning out to be worse than the disease. Fear of the EFCC, the ICPC, the SSS, the FIRS, the NFIU and the Police has caused many Nigerians to avoid the banks.

“It has caused some wealthy people to keep their moneys at home; to convert their moneys into dollars and either store at home or bank abroad. Many make their investments abroad for fear of these institutions.

“The monies that we are recovering as proceeds of crime represent a tiny little fraction of the monies that Nigerians have deposited abroad. If these monies are recovered or recalled and invested in education or power or the provision of infrastructures or directed at making the nation self-reliant, it will not be long before the nation is well on the way to ridding itself of corruption.”

He said:”A time will never come when the nation will legitimize corruption. Let the nation be ever so corrupt, yet, corruption shall remain a crime. While it is with us, and while we seem helpless in the face of it, we must find a way of employing it to move forward.

A wise nation, he said must know how to employ corruption to rid itself of corruption. “Feudal nations employed feudalism to develop their economy. And when feudalism proved insufficient, they resorted to slavery. And when slavery proved intolerable, they resorted to colonialism.

“What greater form of corruption can there be than when one nation colonizes another and pilfers her resources? I do not know what exactly neo-colonialism is but those who know say it is an extreme form of corruption. The economies of the nations that we idolize are all founded on corruption in one form or another.

“These nations have no objection to serving as safe havens for monies stolen from other nations – funds that they turn around to lend to the nations from which the monies were stolen in the first instance.”

Agabi also emphasized that, “Corruption cannot be eliminated overnight. It will take time. We can learn a lesson from those students of ethics who killed a frog by heating the water gently so that the temperature of the water changed imperceptibly. The frog remained in the water until it reached boiling point and died.

“As to the scale of corruption, he revealed that, “We are now at our highest point. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We are all guilty. After decades of dictatorship, the military spirit is now in many of us. Our democracy is characterized by our misconception of politics as a game without rules.

“We are under the illusion that in politics, somehow good can come out of evil. The end justifies the means. We proceed on the false assumption that politics without force or without fraud cannot produce results. We aim at being strong in numbers without being strong in spirit and in truth. We continue to labour under the illusion that in politics good and bad are equal, that we can fight falsehood with falsehood, or vice with vice. That is the spirit which is at work in the nation now.

“We blame our condition on the economy. We blame it on our politics. We blame it on the social system. Some blame it on the judiciary. I dare say that no economic theories, no political theories, no legal theories are going to save the nation until we admit that we are all implicated in the downfall of the nation and change our ways.

“The nation cannot remain the enemy of God and hope that either the EFCC or the ICPC or the Police or the judiciary will solve her problems. We must, like the prodigal son, arise and return to our Father.”

Speaking on the essence for the establishment of ICPC by the Obasanjo administration,Agabi said, “The Commission was set up immediately following the advent of civil rule. So urgent and important indeed was the issue of corruption at the time that the first Bill that President Obasanjo presented to the National Assembly was the one that eventually led to the promulgation of the law that established this Commission.

He further urged judges to resist the pressure being put on them by the political class.

He said: “The military ousted the jurisdiction of the courts and amended the laws to suit whatever objectives they set out to achieve. It is a credit to the judiciary that it stood its ground under the military. They were able to do so because the judges were eminently qualified and conducted their affairs in such a way as not to come under any kind of suspicion whatsoever.

“Today, politicians are still of the same mentality. Our judges must resist the pressures being put on them by the political class. We are all witnesses to the relentless attempts by the political class to make the judges allies in their battles against one another.

“From time to time some judges have succumbed to these pressures. When that happens it only serves to render the political order illegitimate. Our judges must stand their ground and be faithful to their oath of office if the nation is to survive. The only hope that the citizens have of living in a better world is a legally ordered society founded on judicial impartiality.”

He spoke on the call for the establishment of special courts to try criminal cases,stating that the country must take steps to ensure that crime is minimized.

He added:”We cannot establish courts on every street or every home. But every home can take steps to ensure that members of the family comply with the law. Even if special courts are established, we still have to prove the guilt of those who are charged before those courts.”

Mohammed Shosanya

Troops of the 6 Division, Nigerian Army, have dismantled 63 oil bunkering sites, arresting seven suspected oil thieves and seizing 280,000 litres of stolen crude.

The troops also intercepted a large wooden boat in the process of illegally siphoning crude from a barge at NNPC flow station, estimated to be over 198,000 litres, around Cawthorne Channel I, general area in Rivers State.

A statement signed by Lieutenant Colonel Jonah Danjuma, Acting Deputy Director 6 Division Army Public Relations,disclosed that efforts were on to track and round up fleeing members of the criminal syndicate.

Danjuma noted that while the troops were on clearance operations in Rivers State and neighbouring Abia State, combed the fringes of Imo River, and uncovered four illegal connection points at Isimiri and Obiakpu villages, in Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State.

He said that at Owaza and Uzuaku villages in Ukwa South LGA of Abia state, two illegal connection points were isolated and clamped by oil companies, while one illegal refining site, one dugout two reservoirs, wooden boat with over 3,000 illegally refined products were confiscated in the areas.

He identified Okoloma, Obuzor, Oyigbo, Umuagbai, Afam and Obeakpu, as communities thriving in illegal oil bunkering, with over 42 active sites, adding that over 13,000 litres of stolen crude handled appropriately, while other seizures such as wooden boats and cooking pots were destroyed.

He stated that at Alakiri in Okrika LGA, four active illegal refining sites, 2 ovens and two reservoirs and storage tanks were destroyed, as items including one pumping machine, one 500 meters long hose, two coolants as well as one massive tarpaulin storage with over 29,000 litres of stolen crude were handled accordingly.

The army spokesperson further disclosed that troops intercepted a vehicle loaded with several sacks of products suspected to be condensates along Omoku Elele road, while four illegal refining sites, eight cooking ovens, seven reservoirs, one shelter were destroyed, while over 4,000 litres of stolen products was recovered in Bukuma and Buguma in Asari Toru LGA of Rivers State.

He disclosed that six ovens and eight reservoirs were destroyed at Odagwa around the swampy Adaobi village in Etche LGA of Rivers State, as same feat was replicated at Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni LGA, where one active illegal refining site was destroyed and over 2,000 product confiscated.

He explained that around EGI III in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni LGA of Rivers State, three reservoirs with over 1000 litres of stolen crude were handled, while 24 empty drums suspected to be used for the storage of stolen locally refined crude oil were recovered.

Danjuma noted that the troops in the same vein while conducting operations along Igbomtoru pipeline in Southern Ijaw LGA, Bayelsa state, uncovered two illegal refining sites, destroying two wooden boats with over 3,500 litres of stolen crude.

In Tana-Gbene and Abala-Kiri, Southern Ijaw LGA, troops uncovered one active Illegal refining site was destroyed, with over 1,000 stolen products, while at the general area of Lagos-Gbene in Southern Ijaw, three active illegal refining sites were dismantled with over 2,000 products confiscated.

At Kaiama Community in Kolokuma/Okpokuma LGA, troops discovered over 1400 litres of illegally refined products in a residential building belonging to one Mr Emmanuel Okpara, arresting the suspected culprits and handing them over to the prosecuting agency.

For Delta State, the troops effectively thwarted a failed attempt to vandalise a gas pipeline at Okpai community in Ndokwa West LGA, belonging to SEEPCO, while In Warri South LGA, troops destroyed one active illegal refining site, five cooking pots, five ovens, one long hose as well as confiscated over 10,000 stolen crude.

Lt. Col. Danjuma quoted the General Officer Commnading, 6 Division Nigerian Army, Major General Jamal Abdussalam, to have appreciated the troops for the renewed force posture, expressing optimism that no criminality would be allowed to thrive in the region, as troops are poised to create an enabling environment for exploration activities by oil companies to take place unhindered.