A Curious Ruling

A day after it was showered with accolades for displaying courage in a landmark judgement, the Nigerian judiciary received knocks for another crucial ruling.

On Monday, Justice Mojisola Dada was widely hailed for her bravery – in the face of threats – in handing down the death sentence on the co-accused in the Kudirat Abiola murder case, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Lateef Sofolahan. The next day, another judge shocked not a few Nigerians in a ruling on a corruption case.

On Tuesday, Justice Suleiman Belgore of an Abuja High Court freed ex-Speaker Dimeji Bankole and his deputy, Usman Nafada of corruption charges brought against them by the EFCC in a N38 billion loan scam.

The duo were discharged and acquitted from the 17-count charge of criminal breach of trust and dishonest use of the House of Representatives bank account in obtaining loan slammed against them by the anti-graft agency in May last year.

The court let Bankole and Nafada off the hook even though it held that their obtaining a loan in order to increase their allowances was “morally wrong, morally indefensible and morally insensitive”. Such act, the judge maintained, did not amount to a criminal offence but a moral infraction.

“There was no contravention of any financial regulations by the two accused persons and no prima facie case has been established against them. I find considerable merit in this ‘no case submission’ by the defence,” the judge held. For that, the co-accused could go and sin no more.

The duo seem to have been absolved of blame for now, yet there remain unanswered questions for which they should still be held criminally liable, if justice should be seen to have been served in their trial for abusing their privileged positions.

In unilaterally increasing the “running costs” of each member of the House of Representatives from N27 million to N42 million per quarter, the Bankole-Nafada leadership clearly contravened the provisions of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, as supported by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.

Section 70 of the constitution provides that: “A member of the Senate or House of Representatives shall receive such salary and other allowances as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission may determine.”

For the judge to argue that the lawmakers can ignore this constitutional provision and by-pass the RMAFC to increase their allowances beats profound reasoning.

Apart from the charge of obtaining a loan illegally, on which the ex-lawmakers have been set free, there is yet the charge relating to the contravention of the Public Procurement Act. This relates to their alleged wanton inflation of prices of items, including computers, TVs and stationery, purchased for members of the House of Reps under Bankole.

This charge of misdemeanour remains still, and until the former legislators who should be models of integrity and repositories of everything upright, have cleared themselves of the blemish of mismanaging taxpayers’ money, justice cannot be said served to have been served in their case.