Those in government are responsible for more than 40% of criminality and corruption in Nigeria -Afolayan

Afolayan Bisi Esq, an Ilorin based lawyer,a graduate of university of Ilorin, where he bagged his degree in law in Year 2012,  he was called to the Bar in 2013.

He is currently practising at the chambers of T.M Onaolapo & Co in Ilorin, Kwara State Capital.

He speaks with Jimoh Sulyman on the challenges facing the judiciary in the War Against Corruption and Crime among other sundry issues. Excerpt:-

What have been the stumbling blocks of the judiciary in the ongoing War Against Corruption and Crime?

I can’t say ab initio that they don’t have a role to play in it, the problem is that in this country, we believe that when you have money you can easily have your way and subvert the course of justice.

when it comes to criminality, the game is between the judiciary and the investigators that is the police who are tasked with doing and submitting the investigation to the ministry of Justice before they prosecute it at the Court.

The Police are the ones that will present the evidence to the court and going by our law, the judiciary can only judge by what was presented before it.

In this country we all believe that, He who pays the Piper, dictates the tune,some judicial decisions often suggest some foul play in it and this has led to the loss of the public trust in it.

At times you will see the prosecutors are trying to subvert some vital documents and evidences that are very crucial to the dispensation of Justice.

They do so after cutting some unscrupulous deals with the criminal, despite knowing that the person truly committed the crime but without those documents the person will walk free.

Because of this, a lot of criminals have been getting away with their crimes because they know how to bribe their way out of the hand of Justice.

Also I suggest we should change the nature of our law , in section 137 in the evidence act, 2011 as amended, where it is stipulated that the burden of proof must always be on prosecution.

Particularly in a financial crime, for instance a worker earning N30,000 monthly and they discovered he have about N30million in his bank account, why should we now say the prosecution should be the one to prove, no,the burden should be on the person in whose account such huge amount of money was found.

The person should be asked to prove how did he come about such amount of money that doesn’t commensurate to the amount he is earning.

The judiciary need to communicate with the legislature in order to amend the law, in order to checkmate the dent of corruption on the Nigerian society.

Another stumbling block in the fight against corruption and crime is the issue of adjournment and protracted trials mostly in criminal cases, in that case at times you’ll find out that evidences are tampered with or missing,after a while the public will lose interest in such cases.

What happened in the case of Orji Uzor Kalu, his conviction and release?

Looking at the case of Orji Uzor Kalu ,despite the fact that there is a subsisting law which says that when a case is being tried and the judge is being promoted to a higher court, he can still come back to try the case.

That is what happened in the case of Kalu ,the judge that was trying the case at the federal high court was promoted to the court of appeal and he came back through the Fiat to complete the case.

In that process, Orji Uzor Kalu was convicted, but when the political actors came around to manipulate the verdict, telling the world that the judgement given by the judge is not valid despite having a law that permitted him to come back to try the case.

That was how Kalu was freed by the court and he was celebrated by his people and he was given a Hero’s welcome, this will prompt a lot of people to want to emulate Kalu because they know they will also get away with like the Senator.

This is a big slap on the face of the Judiciary, for allowing the political entities to pocket them, bend them to their will and manipulate justice to their favour especially the powers that be because most of these judges were nominated by the politicians.

That is the more reason why we are fighting for the total Independence of the Judiciary.

Do you think the federal government have done enough in the struggle to eradicate corruption?

I can tell you that those in government are responsible for more than 40 percent of criminality and corruption in this country.

In a country whereby someone in government gets the chance of being in charge of a specific government project, that person will automatically want to become a millionaire from the money earmarked for the project.

Those money belong to millions of people and having all those monies transferred to the account of a single person and we won’t be able to do anything about it because from the millions they embezzle, they have the weapon and resources to fight the anti graft agencies in case they were caught in the act.

I think the situation is almost beyond the power of President Buhari ,remember when he came into office and he said if you cannot kill corruption then corruption will kill you ,but now his government couldn’t kill corruption now corruption is killing his government.

When the people in government are shamelessly stealing money, this will often glorify corruption and ordinary citizens will believe that the only way to survive in this country, is through corruption and crime.

When a graduate from university is unable to get a job for his survival and he start wandering in the street ,he may want to explore crime as a means of getting rich quick after all the government that is suppose to create a job for him have failed to do so.