Yemi Adedeji, Abuja
The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), says Nigerians should expect more convictions of politically exposed individuals, revealing that a former governor is currently being prosecuted w with help from the EFCC.
Musa Abubakar, acting Chairman of ICPC, disclosed this in Abuja while fielding questions from journalists at the opening ceremony of a-four day anti-corruption conference organised by the African Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council (AU -ECOSOCC), with the theme; “Winning the Fight Against Corruption; A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation.”
He said despite the stagnating judicial system in the country which takes a very long time for convictions to happen; ICPC had successfully secured 13 convictions between January and June, 2018, while also losing few cases in the process.
Abubakar noted that the recent convictions of two former governors was a very important message sent by the present administration that it is serious about fighting against corruption.
According to him, ” the general public should expect continued fight against corruption. We are also prosecuting quite a number of people and we will also strengthen our preventive mandate which is where we really put our efforts. At the moment, we have a number of cases of federal agencies being prosecuted by us. This last week, we arraigned one before the court here in Abuja and we are also arraigning another very soon. We also have a former governor prosecuted jointly between us and the EFCC.”
Continuing, he said, “this year we have prosecuted quite a number of cases and i assure you, this year alone, we have gotten about 13 convictions and we lost a very few,” Abubakar added.
Abubakar stressed that a number of challenges are militating against the speedy dispensation of cases particularly corruption cases.
His words: “one of these challenges actually is procuring and securing our witnesses. Witnesses are very important in the successful prosecution of cases and without witnesses, there is no how one can achieve what you want. Often times, our prosecutors finds it difficult to ensure that witnesses testify before the court because sometimes they go to court and discover that the witness has actually fled; Perhaps that witness must have been incentivised by the person being prosecuted.”
“In some cases where somebody is threatened, he may be relocated to another place, given pseudo names, identity covered so that you won’t know he is the person that testified against somebody. So, these are some of the things we expect to have and it requires resources. Once we have that bill in place, certainly things will change and at our level we have a proposal to the President in respect of this pending the passage of the bill,” he noted.
To this end, Abubakar stressed that the agency is pushing hard to ensure that the Witness Protection Bill currently before the National Assembly is passed and assented by the President.