Nigeria Needs Special Courts for Corruption Cases, Says CIFCFEN

Nigeria has been urged to establish special courts to handle corruption cases for speedy hearing and adjudication.

This was one of the recommendations of the Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Examiners of Nigeria (CIFCFEN) in its Review of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS). The Country Report was recently presented to the public at EFCC Academy, Abuja.  

The NACS was designed by the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Ant-Corruption (PACAC) as a response to combating corruption in 2017 in line with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) member State parties’ obligation.

The report assessed the Implementation of NACS goals for the period 2017-2021.

Explaining the rationale for the recommendation, CIFCFEN Second Deputy President and Chairman of the research team, Prof. Suleiman Aruwa said the report identified insignificant conviction rates of prosecuted cases by EFCC and ICPC before the courts, which stood at two and one per cent respectively in the period under review.

He said the special courts would reverse the trend.

“This will speed up court hearings, allow acquisition of specialised knowledge on anti-corruption laws, produce legal specialists among lawyers and judges who can focus solely on their legal specialties. This in turn will strengthen capacity in forensic litigation support among forensic and fraud examiners.”

 Other recommendations of the report were: “Work to expedite action on court cases and collaborate with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to establish a monitoring mechanism to check abuse of court process by legal practitioners; amendment of the 1999 constitution to remove constraints standing against the enforcement of economic and financial crimes sanctions, balancing the right of citizens against those of the state and victims; Institutionalization of the roles of PACAC, professional bodies and other key stakeholders in NACS and utilisation of mobile technology and applications to harness data and gain faster insight into crime evolution and prevention among others.”

Speaking on the objectives of the report, CIFCFEN President/Chairman of Council, Dr. Iliyasu Gashinbaki said it seeks to specifically assess the performance of the anti-corruption agencies on the five concurrent pillars of the National Anti-corruption strategy; provide the government and public with a fair and objective assessment of the anti-corruption effort in Nigeria based on the five pillars and make recommendations based on the findings for NACS review and implementation.

Present at the presentation of the Report were: Chairman, Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Prof. Mohammed Isah, Chairman, Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST), Barrister Maimuna Abubakar. Representatives of Attorney General of the Federation, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and development partners among others.