•Says ICPC had returned a verdict that corruption in judiciary is unprecedented

As the Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government has warned politicians against blackmailing the country’s judiciary, the central government and particularly the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice who made the charge have been told by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) to desist from living in denial about the pervasive corruption in the judiciary in the country because the menace of corruption, bribery and influence peddling in the justice sector is now like a nine month old pregnancy of an expectant mother that can’t be hidden from public perception.

HURIWA recalled that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had warned politicians not to blackmail the judiciary by accusing judges of corruption on Friday while speaking to reporters at his residence in Ijagbo community, Kwara State just as Fagbemi appealed to politicians who lost out at the 2023 election not to throw caution to the wind and start to blackmail the judiciary cheaply.

HURIWA recalled that the AGF who also urged politicians to stop making unfounded insinuations against the judges, adding that anybody who has concrete evidence against any judge should feel free to bring forth such evidence just as the minister had said as follows: “You lost at the tribunal, you lost at the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court yet you are insinuating foul play. I think even apart from law, morality also demands that you take the outcome as it is. I am not saying that judges cannot be wrong because they are human beings. Where anybody sees or feels that the course of justice has been perverted, feel free to bring it forth rather than making unfounded insinuations. Unless you can bring forth concrete evidence, I will not succumb to blackmail. Nobody will shield an erring judge.”

HURIWA which faulted the justice minister and reminded him that aside the corruption perception Index of judges which is unprecedented and unacceptably high, also emphasized that it is definitely an act of corruption in the minds of millions of citizens for judges to be seen on television going cap in hand to the minister of the Federal Capital Territory begging for land allocation even when matters between the citizens and the said minister or even ministers could and may come up for determination before these judges which inevitably means that they could be influenced by the lavish gifts of juicy lands in the nation’s capital of Abuja.

HURIWA reminded the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice that his counterpart in the present federal cabinet and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, had said publicly that he has received a directive from President Bola Tinubu to allocate lands to judges and officials in other arms of the Federal Government.

The rights group told the justice minister that Mr. Wike made this known during a meeting with Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, where he pledged to put infrastructure in place before land allocation in the FCT.

HURIWA will for the interest of factual accuracy quote to the justice minister the exact words of the FCT minister so the AGF will understand why the public perceives the judiciary in Nigeria as compromised and highly corrupt just as the Right group said the FCT minister had in early November said thus: “Before now, the President had given me the go ahead to allocate lands to the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary. What remains now is how it should be done because the number is too much. What we have decided to do is to do this in phases. All cannot be done at the same time.

“Some allocations were done in the past but unfortunately, some of the places are inaccessible. I think it is baseless to allocate land where people have no access, that is, infrastructure. It does not make any sense. So, we will allocate lands to you in places that are accessible”.

The rights group then reminded the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi that Justice Tsoho had requested the minister to consider the judiciary in the allocation of lands. Besides, Justice Tsoho lauded Wike for his support of the judicial arm, noting that during his tenure as Rivers State governor, the well-being of judicial officers was prioritised.

HURIWA quoted Justice Tsoho as saying that Wike’s track record in Rivers likely contributed to his current position and stated thus: “I commend Your Excellency’s bias for the judiciary and you have always seen it as your primary constituency. The welfare of the Rivers state judiciary was second to none and you raised the bar so high that it became the envy of judicial officers in other states. It is with that confidence that we bring the anguish of the FHC to you. The peculiarities of our job due to transfers takes us to several places. Consequently, we are denied various forms of policies for enhancing welfare of judges since we are not part of the judiciary of those states and failure to cater for our interests at the Federal level makes us stateless. I kindly urge your excellency to use your good offices in allocating landed property to FHC judges. We appreciate our large number and recommend that this be done in batches, scattered across the FCT,” he requested.

HURIWA said there is no legitimate explanation why judges would be begging for land because definitely that will constitute bribe seeking and this will impede the dispensation of justice even as the Rights group reminded the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi that only two years ago, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in its damning report, indicated that the Judiciary is on top of the Nigeria Corruption Index between 2018 and 2020. ICPC report had claimed that about N9.458 billion was offered and paid as bribe by lawyers to the sector.

In the report, titled: “Nigeria Corruption Index: Report of a pilot survey” the ICPC through its then chairman Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye (SAN), said six female judges reported that they were offered N3, 307,444,000 billion and five male judges reported N392, 220,000million. The anti-corruption agency explained that cases of outright demand and offer of bribes were mostly linked to election matters.

The survey was carried out by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, the intellectual arm of the ICPC. According to Owasanoye, the Nigeria Corruption Index (NCI) indicates that both the public and private sectors are complicit in the high corruption levels in Nigeria. He said the NCI explained in details the rot in the Judiciary.

The report reads: “Overall, the justice sector had the highest level of corruption with a score of 63. The level of corruption in the justice sector was heightened by stupendously high amounts of money offered as bribes to judges by lawyers handling high electoral and other political cases. A large percentage, 73 per cent of justice sector respondents did not experience a situation of outright demand or offer of bribe. Nevertheless, it remains alarming that 16 per cent of respondents had experienced such blatant demands or offers of bribes.

“Follow up discussions indicated that the cases of outright demand and offer of bribes are mostly linked to election matters. Money involved in high-level corruption in this sector was categorized into money demanded, offered or paid. Demands are made by court officials including judges, while bribery is offered and lawyers or litigants make payments. The total amount of money reported by the Justice sector respondents as corruptly demanded, offered and paid between 2018 and 2020 was N9, 457, 650,000.

“78 respondents constituting 8.7 per cent of all justice sector respondents reported offers or payments of bribes to influence the judicial process. Out of the 78 justice sector respondents that reported amounts of money offered or paid, 63 were lawyers. This number makes up 9.9 per cent of all lawyers surveyed in the justice sector. The 63 lawyers that reported payments were mostly male being 69.8 per cent, while their female colleagues constituted 30.2 per cent of that population. In all, the total amount of money reported by lawyers was N5, 733,986,000. The amount reported by female lawyers was N918, 045,000 while male lawyers reported N4, 815,941,000 billion.”

Those amounts, it says made up 9.71 per cent and 50.92 per cent respectively of the total amount reported by justice sector respondents. Lawyers reported 60.63 per cent of the bribes offered and paid by justice sector respondents. According to the findings, the amount of money offered to judges was next in volume to payments made by lawyers.

In all, N3, 699,664,000 billion was reported by 11, that is 8.9 per cent of the 123 judges surveyed. Six (54.5 per cent) out of the judges that reported the offers were female, while five (45.5 per cent) were male. Although, the females were just slightly more in number than the males, the females reported a substantially higher amount of money.

The total reported by the six female judges was N3, 307,444,000 billion, while the five male judges reported N392, 220,000 million. These amounts made up 34.97 per cent and 4.15 per cent respectively of the total amount reported by justice sector respondents. Judges reported 39.12 per cent of the bribes offered and paid by justice sector respondents. The court staff reported the lowest amount of money offered as bribe to influence the outcome of a judicial process. The total amount of money reported by court staff was N24, 000,000…”, it stated.

Details of the document also disclosed the percentage of those most responsible for bribe for judgment cases as follows: Lawyers (27.17 per cent); Litigants personally (21.96 per cent) Court Staff (Clerks, Registrars etc.)—(21.54 per cent); Judges (16.88 per cent), Government MDAs (7.37 per cent); No experiencee on the matter (3.06 per cent); Chose not to say (1.01 per cent) and others 1.01 per cent.

ICPC also cited alteration of court documents as part of the corruption in the Judiciary. The report gave further insights into other forms of corruption in the Executive and the Legislative sectors. The private business sector, it stated ranked next to the justice sector in corruption levels. Although this sector had a score of 33 in monetary corruption, it had score of 55 in non-monetary corruption.

HURIWA is worried that a high ranking lawyer such as the Federal Attorney General is simply dismissing the real public perception of corruption in the judiciary as mere political blackmail just as the Rights group said it may be difficult for most rational Nigerians to even trust the process of anti-corruption activities of an agency like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission since the current President immediately upon resumption, hounded into DSS detention for three months, the then chairman of EFCC Bawa Abdulrasheed until he was forced to sign his resignation letter and then a fresh person was railroaded to assume office as Head of the EFCC.

HURIWA is challenging the new head of ICPC and the new chairman of EFCC to thoroughly investigate the groundswell of allegations of corruption by some justices who heard the election petitions and diligently prosecute them if they are found indicted.

HURIWA is therefore recommending constitutional amendments to make the National Judicial Council, an entirely independent institution outside the control of the Chief Justice of Nigeria because according to the Rights group, there is deep perception that the current CJN who even asked Judges not to bother themselves about public opinion, and who himself has reportedly been banned from entering USA due to alleged judicial corruption, may not have the will power to fight the pervasive corruption that has constituted a big cog in the wheel of progress of the nation’s justice system.

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