₦airaland Forum

seunmsg:
Accused murderers and armed robbers are not entitled to bail. So, Falana is only advocating we treat people accused of corruption similarly. Looking at the level of corruption in the system, I don't think it's a bad idea. We need to start fighting corruption with all seriousness and not with kid gloves.

neocortex:
How do you know who has abused the rule of law without trial ?
Guilty by pronouncement ?

Trendishine:
then y dont the criminals u are backing seek for accelerated hearing and face the trial fair and square, head-on to prove themselves innocent and not a perpetrator, rather than seeking desperately court injuctions to either forstall or callously delay their trials into denail? and elderly old men who should be examplerary figures for truth and fair justice are throwing their hungry callous selves in droves claiming counsels to this swines, eating their feaces in public for corrupt paltry sums shamelessly in the name of practicing their profane style of justice evasion and seeking of criminal rulings from some already sick n corruptly shameless judges wit no iota or minute sense of dignity, practicing callous entrails at the expense of a ppls plight and a country's state of which u are a part of. oboy, be truthful 2 urself atleast for once..all their balbadash of fake rule of 'upside down law' in the face of all obvious evidences, bank statements and confessional statements, both chewed, unchewed and swallowed.. taa.. u lovers of looters should go and sit-down..

TANTUMERGO007:
who takes falana serious?

winj:
[s]Well that is almost all of Nigeria including 5 year old kids selling gala in traffic while not paying taxes.
Most Citizens of Nigeria and looting the treasury, if you collect bribes for services or refuse to follow proper channel for services then you are a treasury looter![/s]

neolboy:
A Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), says politically-exposed persons facing corruption charges do not deserve bail.

“Since victims of grand corruption including armed robbery and kidnap suspects are not usually admitted to bail, those who are charged with looting the treasury should no longer be granted bail,” Falana said.

While expressing worry that many of the ongoing high profile corruption cases may not be concluded before 2019 when President Muhammadu Buhari would have finished his term, Falana also made a case for the creation of special courts.

The activist lawyer expressed these views in a paper he delivered on Thursday at the roundtable on anti-corruption war convened by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, University of Lagos, where he was the keynote speaker.

The roundtable, which was chaired by the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), had a former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, Dr. Femi Aribisala and Dr. Ayo Obe as discussants.
In his paper titled, “Rule of Law and Treatment of Politically-exposed corruption cases,” delivered on his behalf by Mr. Wahab Shittu, Falana said if the Buhari government did not undertake an urgent reform of the criminal justice system, including creating special courts, its anti-corruption war efforts would amount to nothing.

He also took a swipe at the Nigerian Bar Association and the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, who had called on Buhari to respect the rule of law, saying they were not sincere.

He said, “The Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria has urged the government to fight corruption under the rule of law. On its own part the NBA has censored the Federal Government for violating the human rights of certain suspects. But neither the BOSAN nor the NBA has deemed it fit to caution the members of the legal profession who are determined to frustrate the prosecution of corruption cases.

“As far as both bodies are concerned, human rights are the exclusive reserve of the bourgeois. Hence, the tenets of the rule of law are only invoked when the trial of VIPs is involved, while human rights are violated in Nigeria when the looters of the treasury are arrested and detained for a few days without trial.”

Falana wondered why BOSAN and NBA did not talk of human rights when “70 soldiers were recently tried in camera, convicted and sentenced to death for demanding weapons to fight the well-armed terrorists,” and why the two bodies were not bothered about the plight of “40,000 out of the 52,000 prison inmates who are awaiting trial under dehumanising conditions.”

In his opening remarks, Sagay lamented that highly-placed Nigerians who were once celebrated are now the same set of people being exposed as “looters, bandits and locusts.”

“I fear that Nigerians may become so sated with this daily diet of financial brigandry that they may no longer feel shocked, disturbed, angered and determined to see justice served on the guilty and their stolen property recovered,” Sagay said.
He linked the daily woes of the country in form of poverty, poor roads, poor power supply, poor health care and so on to corruption.

Ezekwesili, Aribisala and Obe advised the Federal Government to put in place measures that could deter corruption.

Also speaking on Thursday at the special congress and public lecture organised by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, chapter, Falana said judges who granted frivolous perpetual injunctions in cases of corruption and lawyers who filed for such injunctions were scuttling the anti-corruption war in the country.

Falana, who was the guest lecturer at the event, also attended by the President of ASUU, Isa Fagge, noted that the neo-colonialist nature of capitalism being practised in the country had produced a set of wealthy Nigerians who “are bigger than the nation’s laws.”

He said, “The criminal justice system has been hijacked by the corrupt and looters of the public treasury and their lawyers. It is only in Nigeria that an accused will ask his trial to be suspended.
“Many of the governors who faced corruption charges, their lawyers had asked for their trial to be suspended, and judges granted this. How would a lawyer also plead with a judge that a criminal should not be arrested?
“Someone who stole millions of naira getting perpetual injunction not to be arrested and prosecuted, lawyers must allow cases to go on.”
Falana, who spoke on the topic: ‘The limits of anti-corruption law’ said there was nothing close to equality before the law in the country, as the wealthy and influential Nigerians get lighter punishment while the commoners get stiffer penalties in the criminal system.

He said, “In Edo State, someone was sentenced to three years imprisonment for stealing bush meat, another one who stole handset in Osun State was also sentenced to seven years imprisonment.

“But corrupt public officials prefer to be remanded in Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s custody or being remanded in Kuje Prisons.
“Let me tell you, EFCC cells have beddings and mosquito nets, and I have been detained in Kuje Prisons twice, it is one of the best prisons in the country. Why didn’t they take them to Kirikiri or Ikoyi or Ijebu Ode Prisons?

“And whoever have been detained in police cells would know that they sleep on bare floor, and a bucket put at a corner to serve as container for their faeces.”

He noted that with the way the cases of corruption were being handled by the EFCC currently, and given the incessant injunctions being granted, the government might not get more than five convictions.

To tame the lawyers involved in this practice, he called for publication of the names of those being tried for corrupt practices and those of their lawyers.

He specifically asked ASUU to also join in the fight against graft.
Fagge, on his own part, said the universities had deviated from their original role of carrying out research and making it available to the society.
He also noted that corruption had continued to thrive because no one had been brought to book

http://www.punchng.com/treasury-looters-dont-deserve-bail-says-falana/

neocortex:
You are obviously ignorant and your mentality is only good
for the jungle.

When does transferring money from government to companies
or individuals becomes a crime ?

I am sure it is this kind of belief that is making EFCC not to have
a headway.

You can't charge someone for collecting money for a service,
[b]you can only charge them for not delivering.[b]

neocortex:
You obviously don't understand rule of law.
It is the duty of the accused to defend themselves by every means
at their disposal but an equally smart government will know how to
prosecute successfully.

Instead of formally charging the accused and presenting law-acceptable
evidence, the EFCC is busy seeking for order to keep accused in custody.

Even if they are remanded for a hundred years they are still innocent
without conviction.

Get this clear today, civil Justice is not about what you feel,
it is about listening to both sides and determining who is right.

But if you think , judgement should be delivered based on sentiment,
I am sorry to tell you that it won't work in a civilized society, only in
a jungle.

jkarmstrong:
When do we awake from this collective nightmare? If those that should be awake with knowledge, basking in the light of wisdom, yet sleep contentedly in the darkness of ignorance, what then is our hope? From whence will salvation come? The messiah we seek whom shall it be, who will see him?

I am in no place to inform the learned barrister of the yawning idiocy of his views, how against good conscience and the rule of law his propositions run. He knows all about it: the whole of the Nigerian legal code I suppose he carries proudly aloft in his celebrated skull far more than I will ever do; the sanctity, purpose, and supremacy of the rule of law, and the accompanying necessity of due legal process, is not for a first time being presented before him. He knows all about it; it holds no novel challenge, yet he speaks from the depths of ignorance, as though he were among the ranks of the unlearned, misinformed, confused, uninitiated, perhaps for gain, perhaps to deliberately mislead.

Did careful thought precede his words, or were they thoughtlessly expelled from the vaults of the anxious gullet before due consideration had gestated forth? One can only hope this isn't a permanent ailment, otherwise the learned lawyer might lose what faint traces of credibility he has left, and join permanently the mass of sleeping, contented ignoramuses.

Trendishine:
u and ur cronies that criminally understands the rule of law, what good have u done with it ?...boy, stop deceiving urself..whats ur idea of a smart govntment..? for u this is a smart game of judicial mockery that you should keep playing ,proving nada, to obviously show ur twisted empathy for marauding rogues and outcast felons? in expense of the lives of those over 25,000 soldiers and the pains of over 160million Nigerians including you ?..in the face of flying evidences and shouting confessions?which this brigands has agreed to, not being able to come out and deny any.?...boy, u must be either remotely ignorant or sentimentally mean.. no emotions about it....
look.., for ur interest, do refrain from your habit and archaic ploy of obvious,but tasteless maneuvers, in pools of twisted sentiments with ur opinions, clinging to arms of poisoned deceit and practice of judicial treachery...u cld be bitten..... you cant know any better than femi falana..blieve me....and as for all those ur criminal political rigorous as phony politicians and plebs..they wld go down, law or no law... and nobody wld shout..rather nigerian wld be happy.

neocortex:
Reread my post, if you need jungle justice, kindly migrate to the jungle.
Meaningless and disjointed rants on Nairaland won't help your case.