NBA set to expose corrupt judges

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), on Monday in Abuja, said it will henceforth expose corrupt judges and lawyers in the judiciary in a bid to rid the system of corruption.
The president of the association, Okey Wali (SAN),  who disclosed this while speaking at the opening of the NBA anti-corruption commission seminar, said judicial corruption poisons the judicial process by compromising its defining attributes- fair, equal and fearless resolution of disputes.
“Judicial corruption takes many forms: naked bribery is the most heinous- some judges take bribes. We cannot go around calling ourselves learned friends and learned brethren if we condone or wink at judicial bribery.
“The NBA, through its Anti-Corruption Commission and other organs and programmes, is determined to intervene decisively in the fight against corruption.NBA will set up a Name, Shame, and Tame programme at our national secretariat. The theme of this seminar is instructive and dovetails neatly with our NST- Name, Shame, and Tame the Bad Guys on the Bench and of course the Bar. • Name: By a whistleblower mechanism, NBA will encourage lawyers and litigants to report corrupt judges and lawyers through an anonymous phone-in service. • Shame: NBA will investigate the reports, not for accuracy but for reasonable viability, and submit its findings to law-enforcement agencies for follow-up action, which NBA will encourage and monitor. • Tame: The naming and shaming stages will lead to a gradual sanitation of the bench and the bar.
“NBA supports a review of the formal criteria for judicial appointments and promotion. Intellectual acumen and professional integrity must be the chief criteria for bench candidacy. The NBA must play a more critical role in the process, because as practitioners, we know ourselves and those on the bench best.
“Judicial appointments and promotion should attract talent from outside the formal bar and bench. If our civil-procedure and criminal-procedure regimes are weak, those vested in them may not always be the best people to lead or support reform. If our judicial arm is tainted with corruption, those steeped in its workings may not always be the best people to fight or resist corruption,” he said.
In her own address, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, admitted that corruption is one major topic being freely discussed at every forum in Nigeria and sadly, the bench is not isolated.
According to her, “the truth however remains that, strengthening judicial integrity in Nigeria and discouraging corruption can be better achieved with strict compliance with the code of conduct for judicial officers in Nigeria, and the institutions constitutionally established to enforce accountability and discipline in the judiciary.”
“It is necessary to ensure that every officer entrusted with the sacred duty of dispensing justice does so with uprightness and the utmost sense of integrity. The present administration has shown its commitment to a viable judiciary and is willing to encourage judicial officers that are disposed to promoting a corrupt-free judiciary, at the same time ready to show the way out to those with a retrospective view in our reformation efforts.
“In addition to this is the need for the improvement of the funding of the judiciary. The recent depreciation in budgetary allocation for the judiciary portends great danger in the fight against corruption in the judiciary. Judicial officers must be comfortable to enable them discharge their dutirs wholly without anticipation for graft.”
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