“Since victims of grand corruption including armed robbery and kidnap suspects are not usually admitted to bail, those who are charged with looting the treasury should no longer be granted bail,” says popular human right lawyer, Femi Falana.

Falana, who spoke at two different events on Thursday, stated this while giving a keynote address at a roundtable discussion on anti-corruption war by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, University of Lagos.

The roundtable was chaired by Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption and had Oby Ezekwesili, Femi Aribisala and Ayo Obe as discussants.

Speaking on the imbalance in the justice system at a public lecture organised by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Falana said: “The criminal justice system has been hijacked by the corrupt and looters of the public treasury and their lawyers. It is only in Nigeria that an accused will ask his trial to be suspended.”

“Many of the governors who faced corruption charges, their lawyers had asked for their trial to be suspended, and judges granted this. How would a lawyer also plead with a judge that a criminal should not be arrested?

“Someone who stole millions of naira getting perpetual injunction not to be arrested and prosecuted, lawyers must allow cases to go on.”

Falana, however, stated that some of the ongoing trials of corrupt ex-officials might not end before the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure.

“In Edo State, someone was sentenced to three years imprisonment for stealing bush meat, another one who stole handset in Osun State was also sentenced to seven years imprisonment.”

“But corrupt public officials prefer to be remanded in Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s custody or being remanded in Kuje Prisons.”

“Let me tell you, EFCC cells have beddings and mosquito nets, and I have been detained in Kuje Prisons twice, it is one of the best prisons in the country. Why didn’t they take them to Kirikiri or Ikoyi or Ijebu Ode Prisons?

“And whoever have been detained in police cells would know that they sleep on bare floor, and a bucket put at a corner to serve as container for their faeces.”

He berated the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for criticising Buhari’s disregard for human right violation while remaining silent on the actions of it’s members.

“The Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria has urged the government to fight corruption under the rule of law. On its own part the NBA has censored the Federal Government for violating the human rights of certain suspects. But neither the BOSAN nor the NBA has deemed it fit to caution the members of the legal profession who are determined to frustrate the prosecution of corruption cases.”

“As far as both bodies are concerned, human rights are the exclusive reserve of the bourgeois. Hence, the tenets of the rule of law are only invoked when the trial of VIPs is involved, while human rights are violated in Nigeria when the looters of the treasury are arrested and detained for a few days without trial.”