ICPC: Before the death knell

But just before the death knell sounds, it is instructive to carefully examine the arguments in support of the unnerving clamour for scrapping the ICPC. Over the past ten years since it’s establishment in 2000, the ICPC has acquired the ill deserving sobriquet of being a ‘toothless bulldog’! It has earned an undeserved reputation of […]

But just before the death knell sounds, it is instructive to carefully examine the arguments in support of the unnerving clamour for scrapping the ICPC.

Over the past ten years since it’s establishment in 2000, the ICPC has acquired the ill deserving sobriquet of being a ‘toothless bulldog’! It has earned an undeserved reputation of being ineffectual in the investigation and prosecution of cases of corruption, especially among the so called ‘ big fish’, credited with culpability for over 99% of the nation’s loss to corruption. The ICPC it was said, concentrated more on the so called ‘small and inconsequential fish’, like a policeman convicted for demanding  the sum of N500 gratification before granting bail or the local government council chairman who helped himself to a few hundred thousand naira? But pray, did anybody stop to think about the huge embarrassment that could have been saved the nation if a certain police top brass who stole N17 billion had been stopped when he started collecting N20 notes as a junior officer at check and bail points? Or do we imagine that the governor or minister who stashes away billions of dollars in foreign accounts developed a sweet tooth for public funds and perfected a strategy for cornering such funds only after he or she got into Government House?

Over the years, Nigerians began to wonder why ICPC appeared to look away when other prominent Nigerians stole and bled the nation dry. Examples were mentioned of the governors, 23 of whom ICPC once claimed to have investigated, but none have ever been prosecuted till date. What justice, or integrity is there in the society when ICPC applies what appears to be double standards in handling different cases of corruption. Or, as it has been forcefully argued at various fora, the ICPC targets and witch hunts only opponents of government? According to the Hon. Attorney General of the Federation, this clearly demonstrates a lack of competence in the investigation and prosecution of corruption. What the AG failed to say and which no one is asking is what has the office of the AG done, as Chief law officer of the federation, over the years to improve the competence and capacity of the ICPC to carry out it’s mandate? If the AG is to be believed, then the Federal Ministry of Justice should squarely accept the blame for the following reasons.

Untill the last two years, the core of the prosecutors at the ICPC were seconded from the Federal Ministry of Justice. If the Hon AG is unimpressed by the performance of the prosecutors at the ICPC, then he needs to re-examine their breeding grounds. Does the Federal Ministry of Justice have the capacity to nurture a corp of prosecutors capable of prosecuting corruption cases better than the prosecutors at the ICPC? How come the bulk of cases at the Federal Ministry of Justice are being farmed out to external solicitors at astronomical cost to taxpayers? Can the Hon Attorney General tell Nigerians how much he has spent on developing capacity and welfare of lawyers in his ministry over the past two years since he took office? Can he also tell us how much he has paid to external solicitors over the same period? Come to think of it, can anybody remember the last time any case, of whatever magnitude was successfully prosecuted by the Federal Ministry of Justice over the past twenty years? Why is nobody calling for the abolition of the Federal Ministry of Justice? Pray, physician, heal thyself!

If the truth must be told, the zeal of the ICPC to combat corruption in Nigeria was rubbished by the lack of political will on the part of government over the last five years. This lack of political will was demonstrated not just by deprivation of necessary funds, but can be aptly illustrated by the following examples.

At inception and as a demonstration of positive public expectation of it’s mandate and confidence in it’s leadership, the ICPC was the first to be inundated with petitions against top public and judicial officers including governors, judges, members of the National Assembly, ministers, etc.

Section 51 of the ICPC Act, 2000 provides for a special procedure for investigation of the president, vice president, governors and deputy governors by appointment of an independent counsel by the office of the Hon Chief Justice of the Federation. The independent Counsel to be so appointed, expectedly is not from the public service. The great minds at the National Assembly who enacted the law forgot to provide for the remuneration of such independent counsel, necessary to secure his or her ‘independence’. Our worthy representatives at the National Assembly also forgot, albeit, conveniently to prescribe what happens to the report of the Independent Counsel since it is well known that most Governors are firmly in control of their States Houses of Assembly where the reports are expected to be laid. Most importantly, their Distinguished Honourables sadly did not foresee that their Excellencies, the governors, many of whom were shrewd and politically savvy enough to finance their elections and sustained their membership of the National Assembly would be looting in billions of dollars! So what do you pay a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, appointed as Independent Counsel to investigate a Governor suspected of stealing $35 million? Multiply that sum by the number of states where ICPC will have to appoint, support and provide facilities for an Independent Counsel to investigate the governor or deputy Governor! Proposals to the National Assembly by ICPC to amend this nebulous provision of the law, and provide for an Independent Counsel Act as practiced in the United States where the concept was copied, have gone unheeded over the years. Proposals to the National Assembly to amend the constitution to waive immunity of the president and governors where allegations of corruption are concerned have also turned on deaf ears. What pray, was the input of the office of the Honourable Attorney General in setting an agenda for the National Assembly to strengthen the anti-corruption agencies?

Whatever their shortcomings, which is mostly perceptional due to the traditional reticence of their lordships and aversion to undue publicity in the performance of their duties, it is here submitted that the past two chairmen of the ICPC have laid a solid foundation for the development of the ICPC and the fight against corruption in Nigeria. What appears to the unimformed as ‘toothlessness’ is chronic myopia. The ICPC is founded on a foundation of integrity. And the difference between the ICPC and all other agencies boils down to this; integrity.

Shogunle Ebenezer Adenekan wrote this piece from Abuja