EFCC vs Yahaya Bello: Ododo and how NIPSS can bridge the knowledge gap

Nigeria's independent online newspaper

There is hardly anything I find most offensive like when somebody refers to my country, your country, our country — Nigeria, as a theatre of absurdity. Why? Because Nigeria is the only country I have, like millions of other Nigerians. I have never stepped a foot outside the shores of this country since I was born, so the issue of dual nationality is out of the equation.

The latest of such impunity is the ongoing saga between the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission , and the immediate past governor of Kogi state, Yahaya Adoza Bello. The former governor was accused by the EFCC of an alleged misappropriation of various sums of money belonging to the Kogi State Government. The anti-graft agency accused him, his nephew Ali Bello, Dauda Suleiman, and Abdulsalam Hudu of conspiring to convert the total sum of ₦80.

Governor Ododo was able to get himself a role in the “movie” without consequences because of the instrumentality of section 308 of the 1999 constitution which grants immunity from criminal proceedings to the president, the vice president, governors and their deputies. They did not, or could not stop and search the vehicle to get their man, due to the regard they have for the office of the governor, even though, they knew Bello was in the vehicle.

Widening the scope of the immunity is one impunity that Nigerians should not tolerate. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been undergoing trial on allegations of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019, known as Case 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000. That is the way it should be in Nigeria, considering how endemic corruption is, in the system, and our resolve to at least, reduce it to the barest minimum, if not eradicate it.

The dangerous signal this is sending is that, no matter the gravity of an offence, once the offender has access to, or is connected to the president or the vice president, the governor or the deputy governor, he or she would be beyond prosecution. Or if such an offender/suspect finds his or her way into the premises of the Presidential Villa, or any of the 36 state government houses in the country, he is as good as being covered by the immunity clause.

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thecableng /  🏆 2. in NG

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