Skip to main content

BEING PATIENT IN THE CORRUPTION CHARGES AGAINST PATIENCE JONATHAN

Everyone agrees that the major bane to Nigeria’s development rests in the twin concepts of bribery and corruption, however we all disagree on the right method to adopt in a bid to curbing the menace. The rule of law which presupposes that everyone including Mr President should operate on the planks of the law is a fundamental principle of law as enunciated by jurists, hence if Patience Jonathan is found wanting, she should be appropriately prosecuted not in the media but in the court of law properly so called.

It is a fundamental principle of our law, which is also enshrined in the constitution that an accused person remains innocent until proven guilty. Thus it is lack of knowledge of the law on the side of government to prosecute offenders on the media without undertaking appropriate investigation into the matter. The major problem we face in this part of our world is that we lack the patience and pain it takes to carryout adequate investigation of a matter as far reaching  as a criminal offence before bringing it into the public domain, for instance James Ibori, the former Governor of Delta state was arrested, prosecuted and discharged in Nigeria because the EFCC refused to take their time to trace the funds appropriately hence the Commission was not able to gather enough evidence to sentence him, and of course the same man pleaded guilty when the charges were read against in a UK court because the evidence presented before him by the prosecutors were weighty.

Again, any reasonable man observing the events in Nigeria may not doubt the fact that the fight against corruption by this government is one sided, this is not a defence, but it is morally wrong to target a select group because it sends a wrong signal. I stand corrected but since the beginning of this administration no member of APC has been prosecuted over corruption allegation charges, in fact almost all the heavy weights in APC were formally in PDP and yet nothing have happened to them.

I think the present government is playing to the gallery in its methods of fighting corruption, one, it is an administrative incompetency not to properly investigate a matter before arresting a suspect or charging them to court. Every good lawyer knows that without evidence a case is as good as dead, hence EFCC should use their time, money and intelligence appropriately. More importantly, the best way to fight corruption is not to go after those in opposition because it is a natural principle of human existence that what goes around turns around. Rather the President can strengthen our institutions so that they can work effectively so that even after he must have left office, the fight against corruption will still continue. The only inference one can draw from the imbroglio that is going on in the fight against corruption is that when Mr. President completes’ his term of office Nigeria may return back to where it was.

UWAKWE ROLAND

PHOTO CREDIT:NAIJ.COM

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE GAINS AND LOSSES OF THE ABSENCE OF MR PRESIDENT: BY UWAKWE ROLAND.

President Muhammadu Buhari has been absent from duty since the last few months on a purported medical checkup in London. Good a thing he legally transferred power to the Vice President who is now the acting President, this is unlike the imbroglio that played out during Yar’adua’s time when the National Assembly had to invoke the doctrine of necessity so as to effectively transfer power to then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. The problem is that even as an acting President, Yemi Osinbanjo has limited powers to fully assume responsibility as the commander in chief, this is because most of the big government functionaries may still owe their loyalty to Mr President, couple with this, Buhari appointed people of his like minds who may not comfortably work with the acting President that will want to bring his knowledge of law and practice into governance. Hence the long absence of Mr President may eventually result to a slow down of democratic dividends. The above ...
Post a Comment
Read more

LOVE IS OVERRATED

We often mistake lust for love and many people mistake infatuation for true love. So many people preach that if you are no longer happy in a marriage then you should just call it quits. How about telling people to remember what made them happy in the first place and work on getting back to that place. A man wakes up in the morning and tells his wife he wants a divorce because he has fallen in love with someone else even when children are involved. The fact that you once proposed marriage to a person means you once considered her above every woman, how then do you discover years into the marriage that you love another? Especially after having kids. You probably have seen a slimmer woman or a pretty face or a sexy woman and concluded that you now have a new love. The desire for something new is not usually love but an attraction which can be classified as lust or infatuation. Any time you put your new flame above your children, then you know that you are deep in lust. Sex is an integra...
Post a Comment
Read more

RAPE, ITS JUSTIFICATION AND VICTIM SHAMING

It's sad that this is a world where things are not perfect but isn't that why we have laws; to correct the ills in society? I read today on a blog about a filmmaker who said that "nonviolent rape" should be legalized and that the reason rapists were raping girls was because they were sexually frustrated and that girls should accept it and even prepare themselves for it by carrying condoms and cooperating with their rapists. In fact it is clear that civilization is beyond running water and having flushable toilets, a lot of minds are still in a dark place. Before you join the number of people condemning him, think of how you shame victims of rape by suggesting that somehow they did something to provoke the animal instinct in the rapist. The dust hasn't settled yet on the case of Busola Dakolo and Biodun Fatoyinbo where an Abuja high court struck out the case and called an abuse of court processes and said it was statue barred. They were irregularities as cited by ...
Post a Comment
Read more