by Mark Amaza

Eight years after the bill was first introduced into the Senate and after three assemblies, the Witness Protection Bill (pdf) was finally passed by the upper legislative chamber on Wednesday. The bill was sponsored by Senator Isiaka Adeleke (APC – Osun West); sadly, Senator Adeleke did not live to see his bill passed as he passed away in April this year.

The bill, which was harmonised with the Whistleblower Protection Bill (pdf) sponsored by Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP – Ekiti South) creates a witness protection program to protect witnesses required in the prosecution of crimes such as financial crimes, terrorism or other crimes as determined by the Attorney-General who shall administer the program.

To admit a person into the programme, there must be a recommendation for admission by a law enforcement agency or an international criminal court or tribunal and the person has furnished the Attorney-General with relevant information such as his/her personal history. This is prequel to an agreement entered into with the Attorney-General by the person or on his/her behalf, setting out obligations of both parties. But the law also allows the Attorney-General to provide protection for up to 90 days to a person who has not entered into a protection agreement in cases of emergency.

The law also requires certain factors to be taken into consideration in determining if a person should be admitted, such as the nature of risk to the witness, the nature of inquiry or investigation involving the witness and his/her importance to it, and alternative methods of protecting the witness without admitting into the program.

Although the bill does not make it explicit, it seems that the duty of protecting the witness will be the purview of the Nigeria Police Force by inferring the reference to the Inspector-General in Section 11 of the bill.

With this bill, Nigeria joins 12 other countries including the United States, Hong Kong, Thailand and Italy with witness protection programs. In many other countries without formal witness protection programs, local police implement informal protection as the need arises.

However, a major difference with Nigeria’s version of witness protection is extending protection beyond trials against organised crimes to protecting whistleblowers by virtue of merging the bill with the Whistleblowers’ Protection Program.

This has become imperative due to instances of whistleblowers in public and private organizations being fired after whistleblowing, or even the celebrated case of Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC – Kiru/Bebeji, Kano State), former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations suspended for 181 legislative days for allegedly breaching members’ privilege after attempts to expose what he said was grand corruption within the House of Representatives.

Such protection will go a long way in protecting whistleblowers in the fight against corruption.

The bill, however, needs the concurrence of the House of Representatives before it can be sent to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.

Hopefully, this does not take another eight years.