Judiciary not doing enough on graft, says NLC

PRESIDENT of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Abdulwahab Omar, at the weekend, came hard on the nation’s judiciary for not doing enough to curb the scourge of corruption in the country by favouring the rich and influential in the society.

Omar, who spoke with The Guardian shortly after attending the annual national delegates’ conference of Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), held in Lokoja, Kogi State capital, said a situation where the rich loot the nation’s wealth and get away with their loot after spending half of it on court cases, is antithetical to the country’s fight against corruption.

He emphasised that “the only real cure to this issue of corruption is the judiciary and if there would, therefore, be co-operation among the justices and in fact, all the judicial officers, definitely we would be able to see the end of corruption in this country. Why corruption persists in Nigeria is because the end result (of law enforcement and the legal processes) favours the culprits.”

He added: “We are going to, as affiliates of NLC, encourage these unions to fashion out a modality which will afford the judicial officers to collaborate towards ensuring that justice prevails. Let me cite a very sad example: a one-time EFCC Chairman told me in confidence that it is only in this country you find someone stealing N2 billion from government coffers because he is sure by the time he uses N1billion, he will be exonerated.

Omar added: “Remember, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu at a point said 31 erstwhile governors were corrupt but they have not been charged to court not to talk of convicting or punishing them. If our judiciary will rise up to the challenge to punish people accordingly, if all those big shots, either former governors or erstwhile senators or anybody who has looted the wealth of this country is charged to court and the court will sit down to deliver justice and convict those found guilty, sending them to various jail terms, I am telling you by the time they do this one, two, three times, this nonsense will stop”.