[EDITORIAL] Senator Peter Nwaoboshi’s Conviction And The Fight Against Corruption

That the Appeal Court could diligently look into the ingredients of the matter and came up with a judgement of conviction in line with prosecutorial evidences as advanced by the anti graft agency, gives some hope that our judiciary has not completely slipped into hopelessness as some judgements elsewhere seemed to suggest.

The Muhammadu Buhari’s administration had come into office on a mantra of anti-corruption. Nigerians had believed in the ability of Buhari to squarely sanitize the entire governance system soon as he assumed office. The belief was predicated on his modest achievements as military head of state between 1983 and 1985 following the ouster of Second Republic politicians who were evidently corrupt.

Regrettably, the second coming of Buhari to national leadership stage, in spite of his administration’s cheerleaders’ belief to the contrary, has been a huge disappointment as the performance so far has been below expectation.

Yes, the conviction of Nwaoboshi may be counted as a success but it does not make much difference in the face of monumental corrupt practices that permeate the governance space particularly in the last seven years.

We are all witnesses to many cases of corruption involving Government officials but brazenly covered up through official meddlesome in the functions of the anti-graft agencies.  A few years ago, billions of naira in cash and foreign currencies were found stashed some where in Ikoyi Lagos through the effort of a Whistle blower but after the initial uproar and hype in the media, nothing has been heard about the ownership of the money and what has become of it.

A good number of officials in the Buhari administration accused of high level corruption in their former positions as governors, ministers or what have you, have been treated as sacred cows simply because they are not in opposition party.

Time was when the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress,(APC) made it a party policy that anyone with corruption allegation trailing him would be forgiven once the person defects to APC.  We also saw the huge migration of the likes of Godswill Akpabio, Orji Uzor Kalu and others from opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Some of their corruption charges were either dropped or prosecution manipulated.  Nwaoboshi was one of them and he had been confident that he would escape judgement.  Regrettably, he could not be as lucky, possibly because the party’s current tenure as ruling party at the national level is coming to an end.  As new elections are coming, the party may not be in a position to prevent the anti graft agencies from prosecuting any one.

The Buhari administration has barely ten months to leave office and if the administration honestly wants to partially redeem itself, we recommend that trial of corrupt politicians and other Government officials already charged should be fast forwarded with more convictions before the elections.

Nigerians cannot be fooled with one conviction out of hundreds of corruption related cases pending in our courts. Once the political will to pursue the cases with vigour is manifest, definitely the courts would fall in line and do the right thing.  The courts should not be hindered or encumbered with such mundane technicalities manufactured through political manipulations all in attempt to stall prosecution.

Nigerians would only believe that Buhari is truly fighting corruption when the high profile  politicians in our midst accused of one corrupt practice or the other are appropriately charged, arraigned and sentenced accordingly in record time, once found guilty.

A situation where some former governors for instance with cases of corruption leveled against them in courts, whereas such people are serving as Senators or House of  Representatives members are not good enough for our democracy.

Experience has shown that such serving lawmakers with charges against them in courts have the capacity to unduly interfere in their cases and have the opportunity to buy time, thereby denying the populace justice since it is a common saying that justice delayed is justice denied. The Buhari administration should therefore use the remaining months to redeem itself.