The findings from the survey carried out by the National
Bureau of Statistics and published yesterday by our reporter are
frightening. The most critical institutions in the dispensation of
justice – police officers, judges and prosecutors are the most
corrupt public officials in Nigeria. The damning report came the
same day the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNODC)
released its own corruption report that said Nigeria spent N400bn
annually on bribes to public officials. According to the 2017
National Corruption Survey, 46.4 per cent of Nigerian citizens have
had “bribery contact” with police officers, 33 per cent with
prosecutors and 31.5 per cent with Judges/magistrates.
The survey which was entitled “Corruption in Nigeria – Bribery
as Experienced by the Population” was focused on real life
experiences of Nigerians. Those at the forefront of demanding and
receiving bribes are custom officers, judges, magistrates and
prosecutors. The NBS estimated that the average bribe paid to
Custom officers as N88,587, Judges/magistrates N18,576 while
prosecutors received an average of N10,072 as bribes from
Nigerians. The survey also listed police officers and tax/revenue
officers as public officers to whom the highest number of bribes
were paid. It said 29.7 per cent of all bribes are paid to police
officers upon a direct request before the service is provided. In
the private sector, employees of insurance companies, teachers in
private schools and doctors in private hospitals have highest bribe
prevalence in Nigeria, the survey revealed.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the NBS survey is that
young Nigerians have the highest prevalence of bribery in the
country as 36.4 per cent of the Nigerian population aged 25 to 34
years are the people with highest bribery prevalence. Further
analysis of the report showed that 37.7 per cent of people with the
highest prevalence of bribery have attained tertiary education with
people earning N100,000 and above as those with highest prevalence
of bribery.
The 125-page UNODC report titled “Corruption in Nigeria,
Bribery: Public Experience and Response also published yesterday,
gave N400bn as the amount spent on bribes annually. The report also
listed policemen and the judiciary as topmost on the list of bribe
takers. Nigerians, it pointed out spend 28.8 percent of their
earnings on bribes. The Statistician General of the Federation and
CEO of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of Nigeria Dr. Yemi
Kale and the UNODC Nigeria Representative Cristina Albertin said
the report was based on data collected in a survey of 33,067
households. It was conducted in April and May 2016 across the 36
states of the federation and the FCT and it is the largest
corruption survey ever conducted in Africa.
In a country where the police, prosecutors and judges routinely
demand for bribes to act on what is before them, it means there is
no justice, especially for the poor. Investigation of crimes, their
prosecution and judgments are all procured for a price. This means
that there is no rule of law and there are no values related to the
public good. The State exists in practice to operate arbitrary
decisions on behalf of those who have money, meaning essentially
those who have already stolen from the public purse.
Nigerians are not equal before the law. The rich and powerful
person and the poor and common person are not equal before the law.
Filthy rich Nigerians have moved from the procurement of high
quality lawyers who use skills to produce desired outcomes to the
direct purchase of judges. When corruption becomes pervasive in the
judicial system, justice is thrown out of the window. Our situation
is worse because the few thousand people who have stolen billions
can each buy their own “justice” creating total anarchy in the
system. The few judges that have been found guilty of wrongdoing
are simply retired so that they can have sufficient times to enjoy
the billions of Naira they have received as bribes. That is simply
not good enough.
Our Constitution has given the leadership of the Judiciary to
the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the National Judicial Council and
for some reasons that no one understands; they have completely
abdicated the leadership and continue to watch in silence as the
judiciary ridicules itself on a daily basis. We cannot sustain our
democracy when judges from different courts of coordinate
jurisdiction give contradictory judgments on a daily basis and both
criminal and political actors have become very aware that there are
Jankara judges ready to sell judgments and rulings for a fee
without any worry about their personal or institutional
reputation.
One year ago, I devoted this column to castigating the explosion
of Jankara conflicting judgments on the then festering leadership
crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which at that time
had witnessed fifteen conflicting judgments. The case was finally
concluded recently at the Supreme Court. The problem that was
revealed however was that so many actors have been aware that they
could secure not only a ruling that they desire, they could even
time it to a particular date and the time they want it delivered. I
have heard that lists are circulating of judges who are ready to
deliver any ruling for a fee; the said judges have been very busy
delivering irresponsible judgments with reckless abandon.
My concern is that we now a have a generic crisis of
reputational erosion affecting our key institutions. Over the past
two years, the reputation of the National Assembly has been dragged
in the mud with numerous court cases against the Senate President
Bukola Saraki and the budget padding allegations against Speaker
Dogara. The judiciary assumes an even more important place in the
scheme of things, as it should have been able to provide confidence
that it could adjudicate in a manner in which justice could be
delivered not withstanding the hierarchical position occupied by
the accused. What we are witnessing today however is that the
reputational erosion occurring with the Judiciary is even worse
than that of the Legislature. Who then would save our democracy,
which is based on the principles of the “Rule of Law” of the
“Separation of Powers”? The Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) has had occasions to come out to complain to the
Nigerian public that its constitutional role of monitoring
political parties had been compromised by different judges
directing it to monitor and not to monitor party conventions or to
recognise or not recognise factions – all delivered the same day.
This is after receiving over one dozen conflicting rulings or
judgments on the same matter in a matter of weeks.
The judges whose houses have been raided and vast sums of money
had been found that could only have been proceeds of crime and
bribes have been taken to court and freed in a cavalier manner “for
lack of proof”. The message from the judiciary is that it is
determined to protect its corrupt brethren. Unfortunately for
Nigerians, even the few who have been found guilty are not really
punished. The National Judicial Council has established a tradition
of simply retiring judges who have been guilty of taking bribes or
passing Jankara judgments. As most of these judges have become
stinking rich precisely because of their criminal behaviour, it is
unacceptable that their only “punishment” is retirement. It is
actually complicity because they are simply given all the time they
need to enjoy the ill-gotten wealth. The NJC must come out to
criminalise such behaviour. The Judiciary owes Nigerian citizens
explanations and apologies for allowing the Judiciary run wild and
an assurance that they will correct the scandalous practices
currently taking place.
One thing that has been scientifically proved about corruption
is that when the system is able to punish those involved in corrupt
practices the quantum decreases steadily. When there is immunity
for engaging in corrupt practices however the quantum and scale of
corrupt acts grows astronomically. Following the successes of Nuhu
Ribadu in the EFCC and the way he was bundled out of the
institution for doing his work well, confidence returned fully to
the practitioners of grand corruption in Nigeria. Nigeria became
the only country in the civilised world where corrupt persons could
get court injunctions stopping the prosecutorial agencies and the
courts from investigating and prosecuting their corrupt acts. Even
the future looks bleak as younger Nigerians have even less qualms
about engaging in corruption than the older ones. It is always
important to make the point that not all Nigerians are corrupt and
in all institutions, islands of integrity exist. The point however
is that there are simply too many actors from critical institutions
that are selling their souls and country for money.
dailytrust
The findings from the survey carried out by the National
Bureau of Statistics and published yesterday by our reporter are
frightening. The most critical institutions in the dispensation of
justice – police officers, judges and prosecutors are the most
corrupt public officials in Nigeria. The damning report came the
same day the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNODC)
released its own corruption report that said Nigeria spent N400bn
annually on bribes to public officials. According to the 2017
National Corruption Survey, 46.4 per cent of Nigerian citizens have
had “bribery contact” with police officers, 33 per cent with
prosecutors and 31.5 per cent with Judges/magistrates.
The survey which was entitled “Corruption in Nigeria – Bribery
as Experienced by the Population” was focused on real life
experiences of Nigerians. Those at the forefront of demanding and
receiving bribes are custom officers, judges, magistrates and
prosecutors. The NBS estimated that the average bribe paid to
Custom officers as N88,587, Judges/magistrates N18,576 while
prosecutors received an average of N10,072 as bribes from
Nigerians. The survey also listed police officers and tax/revenue
officers as public officers to whom the highest number of bribes
were paid. It said 29.7 per cent of all bribes are paid to police
officers upon a direct request before the service is provided. In
the private sector, employees of insurance companies, teachers in
private schools and doctors in private hospitals have highest bribe
prevalence in Nigeria, the survey revealed.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the NBS survey is that
young Nigerians have the highest prevalence of bribery in the
country as 36.4 per cent of the Nigerian population aged 25 to 34
years are the people with highest bribery prevalence. Further
analysis of the report showed that 37.7 per cent of people with the
highest prevalence of bribery have attained tertiary education with
people earning N100,000 and above as those with highest prevalence
of bribery.
The 125-page UNODC report titled “Corruption in Nigeria,
Bribery: Public Experience and Response also published yesterday,
gave N400bn as the amount spent on bribes annually. The report also
listed policemen and the judiciary as topmost on the list of bribe
takers. Nigerians, it pointed out spend 28.8 percent of their
earnings on bribes. The Statistician General of the Federation and
CEO of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of Nigeria Dr. Yemi
Kale and the UNODC Nigeria Representative Cristina Albertin said
the report was based on data collected in a survey of 33,067
households. It was conducted in April and May 2016 across the 36
states of the federation and the FCT and it is the largest
corruption survey ever conducted in Africa.
In a country where the police, prosecutors and judges routinely
demand for bribes to act on what is before them, it means there is
no justice, especially for the poor. Investigation of crimes, their
prosecution and judgments are all procured for a price. This means
that there is no rule of law and there are no values related to the
public good. The State exists in practice to operate arbitrary
decisions on behalf of those who have money, meaning essentially
those who have already stolen from the public purse.
Nigerians are not equal before the law. The rich and powerful
person and the poor and common person are not equal before the law.
Filthy rich Nigerians have moved from the procurement of high
quality lawyers who use skills to produce desired outcomes to the
direct purchase of judges. When corruption becomes pervasive in the
judicial system, justice is thrown out of the window. Our situation
is worse because the few thousand people who have stolen billions
can each buy their own “justice” creating total anarchy in the
system. The few judges that have been found guilty of wrongdoing
are simply retired so that they can have sufficient times to enjoy
the billions of Naira they have received as bribes. That is simply
not good enough.
Our Constitution has given the leadership of the Judiciary to
the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the National Judicial Council and
for some reasons that no one understands; they have completely
abdicated the leadership and continue to watch in silence as the
judiciary ridicules itself on a daily basis. We cannot sustain our
democracy when judges from different courts of coordinate
jurisdiction give contradictory judgments on a daily basis and both
criminal and political actors have become very aware that there are
Jankara judges ready to sell judgments and rulings for a fee
without any worry about their personal or institutional
reputation.
One year ago, I devoted this column to castigating the explosion
of Jankara conflicting judgments on the then festering leadership
crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which at that time
had witnessed fifteen conflicting judgments. The case was finally
concluded recently at the Supreme Court. The problem that was
revealed however was that so many actors have been aware that they
could secure not only a ruling that they desire, they could even
time it to a particular date and the time they want it delivered. I
have heard that lists are circulating of judges who are ready to
deliver any ruling for a fee; the said judges have been very busy
delivering irresponsible judgments with reckless abandon.
My concern is that we now a have a generic crisis of
reputational erosion affecting our key institutions. Over the past
two years, the reputation of the National Assembly has been dragged
in the mud with numerous court cases against the Senate President
Bukola Saraki and the budget padding allegations against Speaker
Dogara. The judiciary assumes an even more important place in the
scheme of things, as it should have been able to provide confidence
that it could adjudicate in a manner in which justice could be
delivered not withstanding the hierarchical position occupied by
the accused. What we are witnessing today however is that the
reputational erosion occurring with the Judiciary is even worse
than that of the Legislature. Who then would save our democracy,
which is based on the principles of the “Rule of Law” of the
“Separation of Powers”? The Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) has had occasions to come out to complain to the
Nigerian public that its constitutional role of monitoring
political parties had been compromised by different judges
directing it to monitor and not to monitor party conventions or to
recognise or not recognise factions – all delivered the same day.
This is after receiving over one dozen conflicting rulings or
judgments on the same matter in a matter of weeks.
The judges whose houses have been raided and vast sums of money
had been found that could only have been proceeds of crime and
bribes have been taken to court and freed in a cavalier manner “for
lack of proof”. The message from the judiciary is that it is
determined to protect its corrupt brethren. Unfortunately for
Nigerians, even the few who have been found guilty are not really
punished. The National Judicial Council has established a tradition
of simply retiring judges who have been guilty of taking bribes or
passing Jankara judgments. As most of these judges have become
stinking rich precisely because of their criminal behaviour, it is
unacceptable that their only “punishment” is retirement. It is
actually complicity because they are simply given all the time they
need to enjoy the ill-gotten wealth. The NJC must come out to
criminalise such behaviour. The Judiciary owes Nigerian citizens
explanations and apologies for allowing the Judiciary run wild and
an assurance that they will correct the scandalous practices
currently taking place.
One thing that has been scientifically proved about corruption
is that when the system is able to punish those involved in corrupt
practices the quantum decreases steadily. When there is immunity
for engaging in corrupt practices however the quantum and scale of
corrupt acts grows astronomically. Following the successes of Nuhu
Ribadu in the EFCC and the way he was bundled out of the
institution for doing his work well, confidence returned fully to
the practitioners of grand corruption in Nigeria. Nigeria became
the only country in the civilised world where corrupt persons could
get court injunctions stopping the prosecutorial agencies and the
courts from investigating and prosecuting their corrupt acts. Even
the future looks bleak as younger Nigerians have even less qualms
about engaging in corruption than the older ones. It is always
important to make the point that not all Nigerians are corrupt and
in all institutions, islands of integrity exist. The point however
is that there are simply too many actors from critical institutions
that are selling their souls and country for money.
dailytrust
Read more https://nairalaw.com/our-critical-institutions-are-the-most-corrupt/