Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL), has commended President Muhammadu Buhari’s government’s support for the quick establishment of specialised courts to try corruption and allied cases.
The establishment of the specialised cour it said would bring about speedy determination of such cases within a stipulated time to bring culprits to book and discourage penchant for embezzlement and other forms of grand corruption.
In a release issued by the anti-corruption boss, Mr. Debo Adeniran, CACOL’s Executive Chairman, the organisation noted that Buhari, while delivering a keynote address at the national summit on ‘Diminishing Corruption in Public Sector, organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Buhari had during the event held in collaboration with the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in Abuja, called on the legislature and judiciary to embrace and support the creation of Special Crimes Court on Corruption in line with the general demand of majority of Nigerians in that respect.
The CACOL boss stressed that corruption had been the cause of most of the nation’s economic woes and social miasma, adding, “It is responsible for our weak and deteriorating educational system, poor health facilities and services, pervading state of insecurity and veritable catalyst for overwhelming poverty.
“It is, therefore, imperative that for us as a nation to overcome this destructive impediment, there is a need for necessary machineries to be set in motion by cognate machineries and relevant arms of government towards achieving this milestone.
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“This would, no doubt, make corruption cases to be given special attention and speed up for determination in no much time.”
Adeniran stressed that available records and statistics had pointed out that over $200bn had been siphoned or laundered as economic crimes in Nigeria between independence in 1960 and 2018, lamenting that social services and infrastructure that could have been provided with were such colossal sums were pilfered by those entrusted with public services.
“The President emphasised on how most of the over N1trillion ambushed by members of the National Assembly for constituency projects since the advent of the civil rule in 1999, had been misappropriated with little or nothing to show for it.
“The story is no different in almost all sectors of the economy by public office holders who have come to see public service as an opportunity for personal gratification and unfettered purloining of the public treasury.
“This is why we are commending the two anti-graft agencies in the country, the ICPC and the EFCC for keeping faith with the current government’s resolve in sanitizing the public sector and discouraging impunity that characterised it. We have no doubt that, if properly sustained and intensified, a new dawn of a glorious Nigeria may not be too far off.”
The CACOL boss added, “It is also instructive to note that, Lagos State has been the only state in the whole federation to have set up such special courts for corruption and child rights’ abuse issues with the resultant results already visible.
“This is why CACOL, as an anti-corruption organisation, clearly backs such clamour and requests for competent and judicious composition and enabling laws to make its creation unimpeachable and acceptable to all intents and purposes.”
