The government of President Goodluck Jonathan should be held responsible for the last week’s judgment by Justice Abdulsalam Talba of the Federal High Court Abuja which handed a N750,000 fine option for years of imprisonment to John Yakubu Yusuf, for his role in the Police Pension Funds scam,
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has said.
The judge has since come under public opprobrium for the judgment, with many Nigerians blaming the judge his extreme leniency and consequently advocating his dismissal.
But SERAP in a statement by its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni argued that the government and not the judge should be blamed for putting unregulated plea bargaining procedure at the heart of its fight against corruption while at the same time failing to establish sound legal framework to regulate legal practice so that courts reward large-scale corrupt public office holders with commensurate punishment.
According to the organisation, the judgment illustrates the systemic problem associated with the government’s anti-corruption fight.
“There is now an urgent need for a root-and-branch reform of the plea bargaining procedure and demonstration of strong political will to fight corruption fairly if we are to permanently remove this kind of judgment from our legal lexicon,” a part of the statement read.
“An important element of justice is missing when the accused and the government believe a plea bargain is fair while judges lack the necessary legal tool and mandatory guidelines upon which to decide and render true justice. Once the legal framework is there, judges will have to live up to citizens’ expectation that the courts will apply and interpret the law reasonably and consistently. At the moment, plea bargaining only tends to serve the interest of the corrupt public officials who continue to profit from their crimes and ill-gotten wealth.
It described plea bargaining cases such as those involving Tafa Balogun, Lucky Igbinedion, Diespreye Alamieyeseigha and Yakubu Yusuf among others as laws unto themselves, and emphasised that in its current unregulated format, plea bargaining procedure promotes unjustifiable sentencing disparities, favours the rich over the poor, encourages corruption and is self-defeating and counter-productive.
“What this government must do now is to strengthen the hands of our courts by ensuring that existing specific anti-corruption laws such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act and the EFCC Acts are improved and fairly enforced in line with Nigeria’s obligations under the UN Convention against Corruption. A good starting point is to domesticate this comprehensive convention.
“The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Muhammed Adoke, should urgently work with the National Assembly to develop a comprehensive legal framework to regulate the use of plea bargaining in a way that it is done effectively to increase judicial involvement in the procedure, render justice to the victims of corruption and deter future corrupt public officials.
“The government should consider increasing the potential sentence for large-scale and high level official corruption. Plea bargaining procedure should be transparent and able to defer and not constitute an institutionalised incentive for large scale official corruption. Otherwise, the use of unregulated plea bargaining will continue to undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system, and citizens’ support for the fight against corruption.
“Charging Mr. Yusuf under the outdated and very limited provisions of the penal code rather than the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) Act was apparently dictated by his plea bargaining. The judge was simply applying the outdated and limited law and endorsing the plea bargain by both the prosecution and the accused.
“Even if the accused had received the maximum punishment of both two years in prison and a fine, true justice would still not have been served especially given the gravity of the offence, and its corrosive impact on disadvantaged police pensioners,” SERAP stressed.
Justice Talba stirred national controversy when he sentenced the former director of Police Pension Board to a two-year jail term on each of the three-count charges with an option of paying a fine N750,000, a sum the convict promptly paid and regained his freedom. Yusuf had pleaded guilty, admitting that he stole N23bn from the fund.
