By AbdulGaneey Akanbi<\/p>\n
The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, MMWG, has called for urgent amendment of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, to scrap plea bargaining and deny bail for economic crimes above N50 million.<\/p>\n
The group said weak legislations are responsible for the high rate of corruption and looting of billions of naira by public officials in the country.<\/p>\n
In a press statement issued on Friday by its National Coordinator, Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, MMWG was reacting to recent corruption cases involving former top government functionaries.<\/p>\n
It cited the cases of former Minister of Power, Engineer Sale Mamman, and former Attorney-General of the Federation, Malam Abubakar Malami, SAN whose properties running into billions of naira were forfeited to the Federal Government after prosecution.<\/p>\n
The group said corrupt public officials have liberty to ruin the nation\u2019s economy because all economic crimes remain bailable under current laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat corrupt people in Nigeria hate most is detention. But since this has been waived for economic crimes, and plea bargaining allows them to negotiate what to return, they loot with impunity,\u201d Abdullahi stated.<\/p>\n
To deter public office holders, the group appealed to the National Assembly and the Executive to amend existing laws by scrapping plea bargaining and denying bail in any corruption case above N50 million.<\/p>\n
It described such stringent legislation as the only way to check treasury looting and restore public confidence in governance.<\/p>\n
The group also commended the Judiciary and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN for diligent prosecution of security and corruption cases. It said sustained efforts would help Nigeria regain its lost glory in anti-terrorism and anti-corruption.<\/p>\n
On security, MMWG applauded President Bola Tinubu and security forces for successes in rescuing kidnapped victims, but urged for more proactive measures to prevent crimes before they occur.<\/p>\n
On good governance, it called on President Tinubu to compel the 36 state governors to clear all arrears of pensions and gratuities owed state and local government workers.<\/p>\n
The group noted with concern that some retirees who left service 15 years ago are still being owed, adding that with increased FAAC allocations in the last three years, there is no justification for such debts.<\/p>\n
It urged governors to \u201cfear God\u201d and emulate President Tinubu, who it said has cleared arrears of gratuities for all federal workers in demonstration of good governance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By AbdulGaneey Akanbi The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, MMWG, has called for urgent amendment of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, to scrap plea bargaining and deny bail for economic crimes above N50 million. The group said weak legislations are responsible for the high rate of corruption and looting of billions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15621,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15620\/revisions\/15621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}