The
Coalition against Corrupt Leaders CACOL has demanded that cases of those that
have been alleged and are being investigated or prosecuted of corruption crimes
in the country, despite the removal of the Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Larmode
and the weighty allegations leveled against the Chairman of Code of Conduct
Bureau and the Chairman of Code of Conduct Tribunal, must go on.
Speaking
on behalf of the Coalition, the Executive Chairman, Comrade Debo Adeniran
expressed the opinion that the Coalition, though not in support of the EFCC
Chairman’s sudden removal believes that the president has the prerogative to
determine who he hires or fires; but in so doing, he should replace them
immediately.
“Larmode’s
removal could not have been surprising because his two predecessors Mallam Nuhu
Ribadu and Madam Farida Waziri were removed unceremoniously the same way after
being accused of engaging in corrupt practices, especially by those powerful
toes they stepped on. However, it is not really correct for the regime to
engage in humiliation of their appointees; what was required was for the
supervising Ministry and relevant Committees of the National Assembly to
diligently play their oversight function on the agencies, all the allegations
raised could have been discovered, nipped in the buds or prosecuted, during the
period such suspects are running the agency and not when powerful people are
being investigated or prosecuted by them.”
While
expressing his reservation, the anti-corruption crusader noted that “what has
happened to three Chairmen of the EFCC is not going to encourage people of good
conscience to work in such an institution where there is no security of tenure.
We know that nobody is infallible and anybody could commit any offence but we
also know that we cannot pre-determine what the mind of an individual can
dictate until it has manifested some traits that are not commensurate with the
expectation of the office its holding.
“Though
we also agree that the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, Justice
Danladi Umar is no longer fit and proper to continue in his office, the cases he
is handling should not be stopped or allowed to suffer long delay. It is
expected that between now and tomorrow morning when the Senate President Bukola
Saraki is billed to appear before the Tribunal, another trial judge should have
been properly briefed to continue the trial seamlessly.”
According
to Adeniran, “the allegations against the EFCC, CCB and CCT could be a deliberate
ploy, because it is too coincidental to be accidental that the allegations are
coming up when the Senate President and his spouse are being investigated and
tried. Even some of the senators that accompanied the Senate President to the
court are also suspected to have been in custody of the pieces of evidence that
are being used against the anti-corruption agencies.”
Speaking
further, he noted that, “no matter how weighty the evidences against corruption
criminals are adopted, there must be due diligence in its investigation and criminals
must be prosecuted. Our argument is that the first to be accused should be the
first to be conclusively investigated and prosecuted without allowing the trial
of the hunter to allow the hunted escape justice.”
In
conclusion, Adeniran stressed that “it is to the advantage of the society that
criminals quarrel among themselves with a view to exposing each other, but that
a criminal exposes another criminal should not preclude any one of them from
being adequately punished for the individual or collective roles they play in
the execution of the alleged crimes; that is the only way by which we will get
to the end of criminal activities within our society.”
Temitope
Macjob
Acting
Media Officer, CACOL
11th
November, 2015.
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