How many judges have been arrested for bribery? | NJC rejects NBS report on bribe

The National Judicial Council (NJC) has dismissed a recent report released by the National Bureau of Statistics, where it graded judiciary workers as the second highest receiver of bribe in the country.

Why it matters:

The NBS in its report had said Police officers, judicial workers, especially judges received the highest amount of bribe from N400bn paid in a year.

What the NJC is saying

NJC director of Information, Soji Our in a statement said the report was untrue and baseless.

He queried the criteria used by the NBS to measure the level of bribe-taking in the judiciary.

The statement read in part, “The judiciary finds the conclusion of the organisations not only subjective but speculative. There is no denial of the fact that there are a few bad eggs in the judiciary, like in every other arm of government; at the same time, there are many honest and hardworking judicial officers and magistrates making the judiciary and the country proud.

“The question that should agitate the minds of the people is the criteria used by the UNODC and the NBS to measure the level of bribe-taking in the Judiciary to grade it as the second largest receiver of bribe.

“For instance, what is the percentage of judges caught receiving bribe out of a total number of 1,059 judges in both the federal and state judiciaries?

“What is the percentage of magistrates caught taking bribe from an estimated total number of 4,000 in the country?

How many judges or magistrates have been arrested and/or prosecuted and convicted of corruption till date to deduce such conclusions?

“One then wonders the criteria used by the organisations to arrive at the conclusion.”

It added,

“The Judiciary calls on the general public to disregard the aforestated allegation as it is untrue, baseless, unfounded and a figment of the agencies’ imagination.

“The National Judicial Council as usual calls on members of the public to forward written petitions against any judicial officer found soliciting or receiving bribe or otherwise engaging in conducts unbecoming of a judicial officer to the National Judicial Council for appropriate action.”

It added, “It should be noted that the Judiciary is the only arm of government that has been investigating its judicial officers and dealt appropriately with those found guilty by dismissal or removal from office, subject to approval for such recommendation from the President or the governor of a state as the case may be, and publish such in electronic and print media for the consumption of the public.”

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