ActionAid Nigeria has commended a directive by Nigeria’s chief justice Walter Onnoghen to designate special courts to try corruption cases speedily.
But ActionAid Nigeria’s Country Director, Ojobo Ode Atuluku said chief judges in states “need to play their part and prioritise this directive for immediate implementation in order to restore confidence of the public in the judiciary’s relevance to the current efforts in battling corruption, tackle the backlog of cases and instill greater confidence of the citizenry in the Government’s intent.
“Endemic corruption in Nigeria is responsible for the huge incidence of poverty in the country,” she said.
She said that a most disturbing factor of corruption in the country is the impunity relating to massive stealing of mind boggling amounts of public resources.
Such fund would have been invested in providing wealth-creating infrastructure and quality social and economic services for the citizenry, thus promoting their well-being.
“In implementing the directives on the Corruption Courts, critical legal impediments that frustrate the trial of corruption cases in the country such as injunctions to indicted public officials and the indulgence of abuse of court processes in trials of corrupt cases need to be addressed,” said Atuluku.
“Justice delayed is justice denied. 6 out of 10 Nigerians are living in absolute poverty in part because of the failure of the legal system to play its part in holding public officials to account. We recognize this effort as the Judiciary’s move to be accountable in their role in the anti-corruption battle”. She added further that civil society contributions and those of development partners to scrap corruption cannot succeed without the collaborative efforts of the three arms of Government.
She called on the Nigerian Senate to “exhibit a greater sense of urgency and fulfil its promise to strengthen anti-graft agencies against perpetual injunctions towards deepening the fight against corruption. She further called on the Nigeria Bar Association and the International Federation of Female Lawyers – FIDA Nigeria to pick the gauntlet and lead civil society in mobilising and working to monitor the compliance of this directive and its impact on the fight against corruption”.
