|
Bankole Vs EFCC: Dilemma of Nigeria’s Legal Process
By Emmanuel Ajibulu Newsdiaryonline
Tue July 5,2011
 The
case between the dreaded anti graft agent, Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and former Nigeria’s number
four citizen, Hon. Dimeji Bankole has in recent time generated a
lot of public outcry; some have even fingered the judiciary not
to have been alive to its responsibilities in the fight against
corruption, due to the way and manner this high profile case has
been handled, especially now that the man at the centre of the
storm (Bankole) has openly emphasised that no court in Nigeria
has the constitutional powers to try him for any action he took
in office as the speaker.
However, I consider it absolutely preposterous the vituperation
and tantrums of those who think EFCC lacks the necessary
potentials, competence and will to fight against crimes and
corruption at all levels in Nigeria, owing to the ways most
corruption cases have been treated in our country. Yet some
political observers have also argued that whatever decision
Bankole took while in office as the speaker is agreed by the
body of the House or the Plenary Committee and if the EFCC
really want to make a case they should gather all those people
that were part of the decision making process, and also with the
view that Bankole was wrong to borrow money from a commercial
bank without due process and due diligence. In my own opinion I
suppose the supply of fiscal funding comes from the government’s
bank (CBN), therefore the House of Reps have no business seeking
for loan to cater for its financial ‘burden’. They have an
assigned budget and if they cannot work within the budget or
funds appropriated to them I don’t think they don’t deserve
extra fund.
I was not really alarmed when I read in the dallies that former
Speaker, while speaking before his arrest, admitted drawing the
controversial N10 billion loan said to have been unauthorised by
the House. He, however, said the decision was collective and
denied benefiting from its sharing. With reference to verifiable
records, Mr Bankole issued the first authoritative confirmation
of an intimidating payroll which the members of 7th Assembly
approved for themselves alongside with the Senate in 2010. He
said the loan was not a personal facility but was sourced on the
directive of the House to foot the large increment in quarterly
allowances approved for each members. He also said the directive
was reached by a 37 member committee and endorsed by an
executive session of the house. However, as Speaker and Deputy
Speaker respectively, Mr Bankole and Usman Nafada, were not part
of the proceeds from the loan since they already earned a
whopping N100 million and N80 million quarterly each, as
contained in the statement signed by Media Aide to Mr Bankole,
Idowu Bakare and I quote: “Before the increment quarterly
allowance to the office of the Speaker was N100 million while
his deputy received N80 million. The loan in question was
distributed among other principal officers and the remaining
members of the House,” the statement read.
All feed fat in the distribution made available in the
statement, Mr Bankole’s and Mr. Nafada’s allowances remained at
their initial N100 million and N80 million respectively, while
those of the House Leaders rose from N46million to N60 million.
The Deputy Leader took N57 million instead of the former N43
million while the Chief Whip took N55 million instead of the
initial N41 million. The deputy Whip received N54.5 million
instead of N40.5 million and the Minority Whip took N50 million
from N36 million. Other members, including the members of the so
called Progressives, led by Dino Melaye, who claimed the loan
was not known to the House, collected N42 million instead of N28
million. In all, the differential of N14 million each for the
360 members, except for the Speaker and the Deputy, accounted
for N5.012 billion and for two quarters which the loans were
drawn, the amount became N10.024 billion with interest, the
former speaker claimed. Mr Bankole further stated that the
Executive Session, which was held on Tuesday March 30, 2010
where the report of a 37 member Committee set up on March 25,
2010 to look into “agitation of member for enhancement of
running costs of members”, was reported by Independence Ogunewe,
a member of the Melaye-group.
Meanwhile, during my discussion with a friend Ralph Nwoke, a
seasoned legal practitioner (senior counsel at Dele Farotimi &
Co) he chided those who have been mudsling members of the Bench
and Bar over failed corruption and financial crimes cases in
Nigeria. He maintained that the judiciary cannot work outside
the provisions of the laws and constitution of the land,
therefore Nigerians should not misconstrue that with attempt to
circumvent or bend the laws to favour some selected few in the
society. About Hon. Dimeji Bankole’s legal quagmire and
authorisation or prosecution fiat, he told me it would be
professionally wrong for him to directly comment on amatter that
is already before the Court of competent jurisdiction, but he
however said:
‘‘Pursuant to section 174(2) and Section 211(2) of the 1999
Constitution as amended, the Attorneys General, at both the
state and federal level can delegate their powers to officers in
their department.
The courts have interpreted this to include private legal
practitioners.
‘‘Please note that the office of the Attorney General is a
corporate sole,which can continue to function even when there is
no incumbent in office. However, the powers conferred on the
Attorney General are personal to him and cannot be delegated to
another party where there is no incumbent.
This flows from the Supreme Court decision in the case of
Attorney General (Kaduna State) v. Hassan.
Where there is no express delegation of powers and a
private legal practitioner purports to act under
delegated powers of the Attorney General, any act done by the
private legal practitioners, including charges filed are void.’’
In my own opinion this clearly shows that EFCC and its legal
counsel Festus Keyamo do not have the powers to prosecute Dimeji
Bankole on any matters bothering on corruption in this instance.
The fearless human rights lawyer, Festus Keyamo claimed to have
the Attorney Generals fiat when there was no Attorney General at
that material time, which technically means no one can actually
delegate. Therefore if no one delegates, then any act done
pursuant to the purported delegation is void, such act includes
the charges filed, involving former Speaker and EFCC. It would
have been better for EFCC to file their charge(s) or Director of
Public Prosecution who are professionally empowered to, since
there was no incumbent Attorney General to delegate to a private
counsel.
With all these disturbing lacunas in our local laws which is
seemingly impending the course of justice in the land, I think
it is fair to conclude that the former Attorney General of
Nigeria, Mohammed Adoke was spot on at the Senate Ministerial
Screening (June 30, 2011) when asked on his assessment of the
corruption cases raised against some politically exposed
persons. He explained that a number of the cases raised against
the individuals were built on sentiments and lacked substance.
He said the pursuit of the cases were sometimes diversionary and
costly in both time and resources. ''Many high profile
corruption cases, including the $180m Halliburton bribe scandal,
the alleged N50bn Police Equipment Fund fraud and the N3bn
Vaswani Brothers rice importation scandal, failed because of the
incompetence of the two anti-graft commissions. More often than
not, people are arrested before they are investigated, they are
arrested even before there is evidence, they traumatized them
and the people are dramatically tried on the pages of newspapers
and at the end of the day, when they are unable to prove their
case, they end up blaming the courts. Most of our
anti-corruption agencies lack the capacity to do thorough
investigations. They lack capacity to collate evidences to
sustain a charge and secure conviction in court and until we
properly reform these agencies, we will continue to experience
the problems we are experiencing today''.
Retrospectively, Hon Dimeji Bankole’s ugly episode started
sometime in June 2010, when there was unhealthy and over
publicised rumble in the Lower House, he literally got it wrong
with the former Chairman of House Committee on Information and
National Orientation, Dino Melaye. In an intriguing format, the
former Speaker, Dimeji Bankole was given an ultimatum to resign
or be forced to quit, by a group headed by Melaye and his
“progressive” group who only constitute minority in the House.
Melaye was also reported to have promised to make the House
‘‘ungovernable’’ if Bankole failed to resign voluntarily.
Unfortunately for Melaye and his group their threat did not
stand as Bankole survived the fiery storm. Instead it was Melaye
and his colleagues in the agitation that ended up being
suspended from the House. During those dark days, many rumours
were seemingly flying in the air. Some unconfirmed reports even
have it that part of the strategies used by Bankole was to
outsmart his accusers and survive the onslaught against him, was
to play somewhat ‘‘religion card’’. At that occasion he had
claimed that Melaye and his friends (who had majority Christian
membership) were on a mission of bequeathing to the country a
lopsided leadership in favour of Christians.
Few weeks to the last
general elections, Bankole once again proved that his staying in
power was not a fluke when he survived factions of his party in
his native Ogun State, and the removal of his name from the
party’s list of candidates submitted to the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC). It was later restored as he was
permitted to run for a second term. However, he eventually lost
the election to Action Congress of Nigeria’s (ACN) candidate
Olusegun Williams.
Corruption has ravaged Nigeria, whenever I think of what has
become of my country I feel a deep pain in my heart, this is
sad, and frightening. I do not know how to explain what has
brought Nigeria to its current state, but it saddens me to know
that my country is full of: Leaders who lack decency, leaders
without shame, and above all, leaders without honour. When a man
loses his love for his fellow countrymen, he has lost
everything. Corruption has become a culture in Nigeria; children
are born and raised in a system that strips them of the ability
to feel shame. I believe that in a very short time, corruption
will lose its grip on Nigeria since decent Nigerians are in the
majority. My only hope is that the world will join in the fight
and not let down those who choose to spearhead the fight against
injustice, lawlessness, corruption, to mention but a few . God
bless Nigeria.
Emmanuel Ajibulu is a social commentator and media expert
residing in FCT,Abuja, Nigeria.
emmanuelajibulu@gmail.com
|
